Dread Hands and Dread Feet
by Michael Spenik
Summary: Tony travels from far off India to return home, to Texas, but is waylaid along the way. Autumn realizes that her life as a mundane Celtic Kitchen Witch is at an end, and a higher calling is reaching out to her from her Goddess. Richard defies the oldest known wizard on the planet, making Houston his and defending it against southern invaders with the help of allies.


Prologue…

Tony stands on the top battlement of the castle overlooking lush jungle below him that stretches to the horizon, ending in the southwest with a brown line that looks like desert. Turning and looking in the other directions he can see mostly jungle and with his enhanced vision he can pick out the distant breaks in the canopy that indicates roads, villages and a city to the northeast. The city looks pretty big, and he is writing notes on what he sees at different directions onto a sheet of paper he had found in a desk inside.

A year ago if you had told him that he would be on the other side of the planet after defeating a Lich inhabiting a marble Golem he had would have asked if you had taken your meds that morning. On the other hand, the teenage kid he had been a year ago watching his mother slowly die of cancer looks far different than the older version standing on the battlement now. To start, he has grown taller and wider in that time, now five feet eight inches tall and with broader shoulders from working out more, previously being mostly a lean runner. The other changes in appearance are more drastic, long hair now down to his shoulders but tied loosely behind his head at the moment, which would reveal a scar running down his right jaw and a mass of scar tissue that covers the left side of his face to his eyebrow and part of his ear.

The scar continues down almost the entire left side of his body, but as remarkable as they are, that is not what draws the eye when seen, but it is the aurora borealis type of light emitted by the scars that make most folks stare. For that reason, and self-consciousness, he usually wears a full faced cloth mask, one of which he is wearing, protecting his extremely sensitive skin from direct sunlight which gives him a burning sensation on his scarred side. He wears a black leather vest over a long sleeved t-shirt, a weapons belt that has a well-used enchanted katana sheathed on it as well as other blades and equipment pouches over top of dark jeans and worn boots. Across his back is his most prized possession, even more valuable than the katana that his father had given him, a gift from his commander when he was a Ranger in the US Army.

A quiver filled with variously enchanted arrows and the unequaled, masterfully designed bow on his back were crafted by the Norse gods themselves and presented to him as a gift for his actions in battle and in apology for the offenses of their former king had given against him. The bow is made from the bones of the Jabberwocky, a dragon he slew with his girlfriend, Maddie, before they had dated. Dark green and black with complementing highlights and runes crafted upon it, the silver string is stronger than steel and can only be drawn by him. The arrows of green hued darkwood are tipped with the dark teeth of the dragon and have colored fletching denoting their additional properties to burn, freeze, shock or pierce, the gifts are without a doubt priceless beyond measure.

The greatest change one would find in him, however, would be his eyes, which once were filled with the wonder and excitement of youth a year ago, but the last months had hardened him and given him an expression far better suited to a man a decade or more older. Despite that he is polite and usually quietly spoken unless on a job with the Mercenary Guild or fighting for something or someone he cares about. That last one being the reason he is in his current predicament.

Powerful men had come to Houston to kill his father, though they did not know his connection to him, and had targeted him and his girlfriend as well. When the attempts failed, they changed their goal for reasons he is uncertain of, wanting instead to take him alive, and they had kidnapped Maddie, his werewolf girlfriend, to get him to agree to come. He had tried to rescue her and had nearly succeeded when Maddie's sister was taken, and he turned himself over for their safe passage. Once teleported here to India (how the hell did that happen?), he fought and nearly died at the hands of the Lich that had taken him.

But he had been watched by the Norse All-Father, and Mjolinir, Thor's hammer, had been sent across the vast distance to his hand when he needed it most. The hammer of the gods granted him the power of Thor, though only for a minute as the Norse gods' power in this part of the world is a mere whisper of what it is at home. The time was enough for Tony to defeat the Golem the Lich inhabited and destroy the vessel that housed its spirit. But now he is stranded in a faraway land where he does not speak the language, has no allies, and knows that the one who rules here would gladly see him dead.

When the magic dropped and he lost communication with Aunt A's mirror on the other side of the planet he decided to make the most of his time and start by figuring out where he is. His father, Richard Michaels, the Khan of the shapeshifter group known as the Horde, did missions in this part of the world when he was in the army, he may be able to help figure out where he is if he has enough information. He can also see a river to his east heading north to south and to the southwest a large city, similar in size to Houston, maybe. The biggest feature he can distinguish, however, is the mountain range far in the distance, looming. If he recalls right from school, that would place him in northern India, closer to Nepal, home of the Ghurkas, but also very far from a coast, meaning he is deep in enemy territory.

He finishes his sketch and heads back into the large structure, closing the trap door behind him and locking it. The building had been locked from the inside, but he had cut his way in following the Lich to its treasure room. Now he heads down to the lower levels in search of a kitchen or armory or something, the doors within the castle unlocked, though he still keeps his senses sharp for traps.

Four hours later he has found no kitchen nor food storage, but he has found the library and an armory filled with a variety of weapons and equipment native to this part of the world, none of it technological in nature. The last does not bother him, as he cannot use tech, the magic in his body too powerful and affecting technological equipment he touches, rendering it inoperable. He has been lucky and found field rations in the armory's dry storage, US Military MREs, Meals Ready to Eat, as well as from other countries. The rations are in a separate room, boxes stacked up the ceiling. He takes a single box of 24 with him back to the treasure room as well as a set of leather armor that looks to be his size and a quiver of extra arrows.

He eats a spaghetti in meat sauce MRE in the treasure room and takes a quick inventory of what has not been destroyed by the fight and glances at the hole in the ceiling, deciding he should probably sleep elsewhere. He finds a nearby room that looks to be servants' quarters and dumps his gear, then organizing it before going back to move the mirror from the treasure room to here. That done he opens the MRE box and pulls another one out at random and eats, hungry after the excitement of the fight and getting himself set up here, deciding that the vegetarian omelet is edible but not his favorite and definitely not made with real eggs.

When he finishes eating he decides to go to the library and see if there are any books in English he can read while he is waiting, and back to the armory to get a pack and a cloak and anything else he thinks he might need. He stops first at the armory and grabs a good sized pack and a thin grey cloak, as well as a pair of steel gauntlets and two pairs of archery gloves, in case his get torn up. In the library, a spacious room with rolling ladders reaching up to the top shelves thirty feet above the floor which houses thousands of books along the twenty yard square space, a pair of plush chairs in the center as well as a table and chair.

He scans the shelves and finds one in the corner dedicated to English tomes, and he scans for anything familiar as he crosses the room. Seeing nothing modern except studies and research he does not recognize, he searches for something that would help him here in his current predicament. He finds a book on Hindu mythology and creatures that have emerged since the Shift, as well as another on Hindu history. He packs the two books in his bag and returns to the servants' quarters to rest and read until magic returns to the world.

Dread Hands and Dread Feet…

Richard rides his horse in through the gates of the Bastion, still in the suit he had worn to the interview at the University of Houston, minus the tie. He had originally scheduled the interview for the day after he had been attacked, but had postponed due to the current issues. The reporter had stayed local, however, and was eager to get a chance to talk with Richard, so he had pulled strings to get the word out about the hasty public appearance. The turnout had been amazingly more than he had thought he would get, but then he supposes he should not be surprised, as he owns a good number of the companies in town.

He had done better than anyone expected him to considering that his son had been magically sent to the other side of the planet and nearly killed, he had nearly died at the hands of another shapeshifter, his sister had been shot out of the sky while riding her dragon, and his daughters had nearly died, all in the last twenty four hours, even if only a few knew it all happened. Which does not mention that his wife is still not responsive, falling into a coma after being painfully drained of magic to help fuel the spell that replaced his right hand with a black, scaled draconic version after it had been shot off by the same shapeshifter that tried to kill him yesterday. The tech had held for the entire day, and he is unsure if that is a good thing or bad as he dismounts in front of his house under an overcast sky, the dark clouds of an oncoming storm reflecting his mood. He hands off the horse to one of his people to stable it and walks behind the house to the barn which now stables four of the flying bird/dinosaurs that the Houston Mage Academy developed. He finds what he expected to find when he had gotten the message when leaving the event in town, Maddie and three Agogites packing three of flying beasts and Trixie, Maddie's sixteenth birthday present that has morphed into a full Wyvern.

Maddie is sixteen years old, lean and muscular and stands a pair of inches over five feet with dark brown hair normally falling just past her shoulders but currently pulled back into a simple ponytail. Her brown eyes are young, but when she wants to her eyes tell the story that she has already seen the horrors that exist in this world and she will not be defeated by them. She wears jeans and a dark green, nearly black vest that faintly shimmers in sunlight, the hide of a dragon she had slain with her boyfriend, Tony, and crafted by the Norse into a protective garment that will shift along with her when she changes forms. She has the gladius Richard had given her just before attending the Agoge sticking over one shoulder and a long dagger tucked into her belt at her hip.

"What are you doing?" he asks calmly, even though he already knows, halting a few yards from where Maddie is checking her saddlebags.

"Packing for the trip," she says simply in a hard tone, not turning to face her adoptive father. "We have dried rations and ranged weapons for everyone, we'll be able to hunt for food along the way for ourselves, foraging for the Ptactors will be harder, but we'll manage, we've got US currency to pay if we need to, and silver bullion as well."

"And what makes you think you're going on any trip I might send?" Richard asks quietly, not wanting her to make a scene.

"He is my _mate_ ," she says, turning to face him with a hard expression and meeting his gaze with a challenge, not looking away as etiquette dictates. "If it were Tasha out there, you'd either already be in motion or developing a plan to get her back as soon as possible and would _not_ be left out of it. And you're probably not going to go get him back because she is still in a coma and if Aunt A needs to use you as a battery for a spell to wake her up, you'll need to be here."

He looks at her solidly, not with a demanding expression but simply blank and after a few breaths she lowers her gaze from his own, causing the three Agogites around them to relax a bit after tensing up at Maddie's brief display of defiance to his authority.

Richard reaches out and puts a hand gently on her shoulder, "He'll be okay. He's learned a lot since he got here, he's not helpless and he's healthy with his primary equipment."

"I know, but –" she pauses and glances at the other Agogites and pitches her voice so only he can hear, Trixie's nearby breathing muffling it from the others nearby. "He didn't go to Ranger School like you did or anything like it. And he's got no one to watch his back."

"I didn't say it would be easy," Richard says with a shake of his head and a sigh of his own. "But we have to trust him to take care of himself and have faith he'll make it. You know better than anyone what he's accomplished. I trust that he will be okay, just like I will trust whomever I send to bring him back."

"Don't make me stay here," she says, looking up at him with eyes that for all they have seen in the last year are still those of a very young girl.

"We'll talk it over," he says with a tight smile. "Believe it or not, who I send or don't send is a political decision as much as a practical one."

Maddie's face clouds with anger, "How can they talk about politics when he's on the other side of the planet in enemy territory."

"Life goes on regardless whether he's here or not, and the Horde still has to function," he says with an unhappy shake of his head. "We lost quite a few friends and family over the last week, and I have to keep everyone rowing in the same direction. I roar and order when I have to, but a willing participant is more efficient than one following in fear."

She frowns with a sigh, "I guess."

"Trust me," he says with a small smile. "I've been doing this for a little while now. Keep packing and then come over to the theatre with them when you're done," he gestures to the other Agogites.

He pulls her into a quick hug that she returns and holds for a moment then returns to packing the dragon while stifling a sniff and wiping an eye.

Autumn frowns hard at the unconscious woman lying on the bed in the Bastion's medical ward. Tasha, Rich's wife and mate, normally would stand a few inches or so taller than her with a strong personality and a pretty, handsome face with dirty blond hair. Tasha had volunteered to be the "sacrifice" for the spell Autumn had cast to replace her brother's severed hand. This was not an expected side effect, and she is worried because she is not entirely sure how to pull her out of it, and neither does her boyfriend, Stan. Stanislov Lizovsky, a former military medic and currently one of the leaders of the Russian magic users in town, is a White Vohl who specializes in healing, so if he does not know, then they are in trouble.

She turns when the door to the room opens and her brother, Richard Michaels, walks in, immediately becoming the center of the room, even though he stands on the edges of it. She had asked him once how he did that, be a dominating presence where ever he went and his ability to turn it off, and he had told her it was a thing he learned in the Army. She tried to get him to explain it better, but he just shrugged and said it is hard to explain without experiencing it. Standing just a bit over five and a half feet tall with a solid, muscular frame and a light stubble over his face and head, he is dressed in jeans, red t-shirt and a black leather vest on. She does not see any weapons on him, but knows he has blades tucked away on his person, not that he is not lethal with no weapons at all, having spent years of his life in the US Army Rangers and his spent his entire adult life hunting monsters and evil men.

No one would think the two of them related until you saw them next to each other and note the similar jaw structure, but that is where the similarities end. Where he is the obvious picture of male assertiveness and the warrior code, she tended more towards their mother with a barely five foot frame that she works constantly to keep fit. She would never be slender, but she is certainly in good health and maintains her workout routine so that she is able if it comes to a fight. She did not have to worry so much about getting into fights very often before moving into the same city as her brother, as it seems that he attracts trouble like a magnet, as do his kids, genetic and adopted. Her long dark hair has a few strands of grey in it braided into a rope down her back that reaches to below her shoulder blades and her face is a bit rounder than Richard's with brown eyes that resonate a sense of understanding when they look at a person.

"Any improvements?" he asks the two, his arms not crossed and his tone easy, but a command for all that.

"None," she says with a shake of her head and a frown, glancing at Stan who is next to the bed, she at the foot of it.

Stan wears white robes and has a staff with the head of an owl on the top of it, looking exactly like Gandalf would if he were in his late thirties or early forties.

"I think it's a side effect of the spell," he says with a compassionate tone, his voice smooth and calming. "It was never intended to leave the source of the power alive. She's not dead, and when the magic returns we'll see if she is still weak in magic, as she was a practitioner and had a decent amount to work with, even if not what Autumn or I have."

He nods once, glancing at Autumn, "One hour after the magic returns, that's when we connect again."

"I know," she says with a nod. "We'll be ready."

"I'm going upstairs to talk with the Council and work out the plan to get Tony home," he says then leaves without a backward glance.

After a few moments of silence Stan breaks it with a shake of his head.

"If I did not know you I would think he doesn't care about his comatose wife or his son being in danger," he says quietly.

"He may or may not let those feelings out later, but right now, we have jobs to do, and people to take care of," Autumn says as she sits down and opens the chest sitting next to her chair, pulling out a clay tablet with tiny Cuniform writing covering every surface and beginning to read.

Richard sits on a folding chair looking around at the others sitting at the three folding tables pushed into a triangle so they can all see each other. Five years ago there were only three pairs of Alphas under the Pack lord, now there are seven of them consisting of Wolf, Cat, Heavy, Jackal, Rat, Bouda and Lissome. What was once called the Houston Pack is now the Horde with Richard as Khan, their leader and the dominant Alpha to them all.

"Are there any questions?" he asks, having just given the summary of events for the recent past.

"What do you think this enemy will do next? Give up or double down?" Khaled asks, the current leader of Clan Jackal, a descendant of Kurdish Immigrants who inherited their dusky skin and black hair as well as ordinary features on his round face and a slim build.

"I don't have full intel on him," Richard admits, leaning back in his own chair, his right hand on the table drumming his fingers. "I'll call in to some contacts and see what I can pull. On general principle, I'd wager he won't give up, considering he lost two major players, both magical and mundane, to us. He can't be made to look weak to his own people, honor will demand he at least attempt vengeance for the insult."

"So we stay vigilant and watchful… just another day," Noel says in a voice like a landslide, the wide and muscular were-bear Alpha of Clan Heavy. His rough, square jaw has thick stubble on it and his hand length hair is black with streaks of grey in it, his face wrinkled but firm and a squint in his right eye that had only recently grown back from a wound he had taken last year.

"This is not helped by the fact that Roland has also visited the city recently, he obviously has his eye on us as well after Tiamat, and the fact that we are just south of his own territory," Mrs. Domasca, female Alpha of the Wolf Clan says, sitting beside her husband Thomas Domasca, the Head of Wolf Clan. He is dark of hair with sharp blue eyes and a strong lean build, his wife with long blond hair and beautiful Russian features who is not a shapeshifter but a very strong witch.

"About that," Mitchell interjects, leaning forward at his own folding chair a pair of seats from Richard. Mitchell is head of Clan Cat with ebony skin and a shaved head with a sharp jaw, light brown eyes that scan every detail and a thin goatee. Sitting between him and Richard is Mischa, the Cat Clan female Alpha and who the Horde is referring to as the Consort, sharing the bed of both Richard and his wife Tasha. She has tan skin and dark hair falling past her shoulders on an athletic figure that is currently sporting a bulge in her midsection, currently six months pregnant with Richard and Tasha's triplets.

"Let me guess, Roland sent an emissary?" Richard asks, eyebrow quirked as he looks sideways at the Horde's head of security.

Mitchell looks at his boss suspiciously, the other Pack leaders blinking in surprise at the statement.

"Yeah, he did," Mitchell says cautiously.

"How did you know he would?" Mischa asks, a question on everyone's mind, but no one else willing to voice it.

"He's not stupid, and he wants to expand his holdings here," he reasons out. "We pushed the People out of town and have restricted their business in Dallas and Fort Hood significantly, as well as fending off his attack using Tiamat. He was probably looking at going into full war mode, but when we took New Orleans, I'll bet we surprised him, so now he's wondering if we're worth the resources it would cost to take us down, because we've proven we won't go easy or quietly."

"So what's this then, a negotiation?" William asks, head of Clan Lissome, a were-mongoose as his clan is made up of the smaller and rarer shapeshifters. William is thin in his face and body, his six foot frame looking almost gaunt and his gestures are all measured and careful. He has straw colored short hair over dark eyebrows and pale eyes over his perpetually perplexed expression that hides a sharp mind and deadly hands.

"A parlay, more likely," Richard says with a thoughtful expression, rubbing his chin in thought. "Where did he show up?"

"She approached our main office in Dallas," Mitchell says, looking at the group. "We had previously identified her as potentially being a new Master of the Dead to compete in the People's power scene in town, as intel indicated. We don't know her capabilities or intent, she stated she has a message for you from Roland and wouldn't speak about it with anyone but you."

"It could be a trap," Jameson says from where she sits next to the Jackal Alpha, she being the Alpha for Clan Bouda, the were-hyenas. Dirty blond hair, a square figure and a perpetual scowl on her face, she had created Clan Bouda from nothing with the help of Richard and Tasha.

"I don't think so," Richard says with a shake of his head. "He's tried to kill us a couple times already and probably received reports on who we just repelled. He may have intel on him that we need, and he thinks now, after we've lost more people, we'll be more willing to deal with the devil we know versus the devil we don't."

"Are we?" Daniel Torres asks, leader of Clan Rat as he glances at the other Alphas.

"We won't submit," Richard says with a firm tone as his eyes travel around the Council, his posture leaned back and relaxed but his eyes and tone dominant. All the others avert their eyes in respect and submission, the most powerful shapeshifters in the state of Texas hesitant to give offense to the Khan of the Horde.

"Bring the Emissary, I will deal with her," Richard says with a gesture at Mitchell. "We need to discuss the mission to retrieve my son as well as an adjustment to our relationship with the Vikings. After the attack and this development from Roland, we will need to escalate our timetable."

"The Russians are very unhappy with this course of action, and the Hebrews in the Temple do not yet know," Mrs. Domasca says.

"They'll deal with it, they won't have a choice," Richard says with a half shrug.

No one openly objects, the plan having been discussed at length and none seeing a better option available.

Autumn storms up the stairs in Richard's cabin that leads down to the complex of underground tunnels and chambers beneath the Bastion which is still being expanded. She bursts through the door to the living room, which is empty, and glares into the kitchen where Richard is sitting at the table with a beer in front of him and another across from him waiting for her. She almost stomps as she stops across the table, crosses her arms and glares at him angrily.

"You can't send her, even though she wants to go, she's too close to the problem and she'll risk more than she should, putting them all in danger," she states in a hard tone.

"Short of locking her in a very strong Loup cage until this is resolved, I can't stop her," Richard counters, looking at the bottle in his hand, picking at the label with the tipped nails of his right hand.

"Locking her in a Loup cage until this is finished is not the worst idea I've heard. _Your_ plan _is_ the worst plan I've heard with the exception of casting a death curse on _**yourself**_!"

"I can't go. Period," he says with a hard frown at her in response, his own anger simmering within him and begging to be let out. "She is the second best fighter among the Agogites and has enchanted gear given to her by the _gods_. Even with her tendency to bite off more than she can chew, she survives and usually wins."

"She's been captured by the enemy three times!" Autumn says waving out the door and trying not to yell. "Now you're going to send her across hills and valleys that are the homes of our enemies to try and bring Tony back? It's a suicide mission. Call the First Lady and work something out with the government, we'll work something out to get him teleported back here while he holds tight in the castle."

Richard shakes his head with a sigh, "He's not safe in the Castle. The guy that owns that land will know he's there and that his guy is definitely dead when the magic returns. He may even know now if he is tech savvy and not too ingrained in the old ways, and has some of his people heading towards that castle even now."

Autumn tilts her head as she studies her brother and leans forward to place her hands on the table firmly as she narrows her eyes at him, "What do you know that I don't?"

"Sit down," he says from under a lowered brow, then taking a pull from his beer with a grimace. When she is seated he explains.

"It's called the Claiming, and it's the reason Roland is in the United States instead of the Middle East where he built his last empire before magic fell from the world," he says as he leans back in his chair.

"I always wondered why he didn't stay in his home region," she says with a suspicious look on her face.

"If you are powerful enough with magic you can claim land, what this means is that you are tied to the magic of that land and everyone who lives there," he explains. "Roland has too many contenders back in the Middle East and no room to expand without a very big fight, he'd have to wage a very large war to defeat his neighbors."

"Why come here then?" she asks, frowning as she digests that.

"The Natives that lived here owned the land, their gods had rights to the land and had the Americas not been invaded and settled by the other cultures, primarily European, committing genocide of the local population in the process, then when the magic returned, _their_ gods would have more sway here," he says. "But we wiped the slate clean, no one has claimed the Americas yet in total, only in parts. The knowledge of how to Claim the land was lost over the millenia, only the really old ones remember how to do it and a few others. Odin has Claimed his patch of territory, it's the reason he's bringing in more people and grabbing land westward along the coast in preparation of doing another."

Autumn sits back in her chair and stares off into the distance as she digests this. After a moment she looks at him with a questioning look on her face.

"And yes, Roland has claimed a good chunk of the Mid-western United States and part of Canada," he says with an unhappy nod. "He can draw power from everyone living in territory he owns and from the land itself. If someone not of the land comes into that territory, the owner knows it, can feel it. The stronger you are in magic, the more they notice you. Tony's a flare when the magic is up and still a fire when it's down. He can run, but he won't be able to hide from whoever owns the territory. I _have_ called the White House but they have no assets in place to help in that region and I don't know where he is in India, which is not a small place, it is a sub-continent."

"You told him to stay in place," Autumn says with a look of accusation.

"No need to scare him right away, and he needs his head in the game while coming to grips with his situation and taking stock," Richard explains. "I'll tell him the gist of it in the next call, and tell him the plan, which is for him to head to Burma then China. The Xiangs assure me that if he can get there, they can make arrangements to get our team to him through China's territory, but if we don't make direct contact with mainland China, not a phone call or distant spell but face to face communications, China won't deal with us, it's a formal custom thing and still not a sure shot."

Autumn continues to frown at him, then sighs and picks up the open beer and takes a drink herself while still glaring at him.

"How are they getting there?" she asks, still frowning.

"Roland hasn't Claimed California yet, still too chaotic from when he pushed the state into collapse," he says, Autumn raising an eyebrow at information she did not know, that the ancient wizard had caused the collapse of most of the western coast of the United States. "We send our team west on the fliers, meet up with a US Navy ship, an old USS Oliver Hazard Perry class that has been converted to dual engines, magic and mundane, and they sail to China with a short stop at Hawaii and Japan for resupplies."

"You worked all that out in a thirty minute phone call?" she asked, surprised.

Richard snorts, "No, it's a contingency I put in place after my excursion in South America, in case I, or anyone else in my family or the Horde, were whisked away."

"You had a plan ready, sitting on a shelf, to get him back from India?" she says incredulously, shaking her head. "Somehow, I'm shocked but not surprised. How is that possible?" She tilts her head, "What if he'd been transported to Europe?"

"Got a plan for that, too," he replies with a nod. "A better one than our current plan, that's for damn sure."

"Why China and not have him head to the Mediterranean?" she asks, curiosity slightly overriding her anger.

"He'd have to either go through Afghanistan, hell the _fuck_ no, or swing up through Russia, which is still a hell no," he replies. "So, this is the best bet, trying to sail to India is too risky, pirating off their coast has been a major market since the _last_ age of magic, and it's supported by the government."

"You really did think this through, didn't you?" she says as she puts down her beer from taking a drink while he talked.

"You know I'm smart, this shouldn't surprise you," he admonishes her. "Anyway, so a Lich prefers privacy from my knowledge, so he'll be out of immediate reach of his boss, which gives Tony a chance to prep for movement, but the journey will not be easy," Richard says. "Hopefully he's a good distance from Old Dehli, the capital that rose from the old one, New Dehli, and he can get to Bruma or Bangladesh overland which he can go through to get to China. A lot of those little countries in there got absorbed into the stronger ones right after the shift."

"So now we just have to tell him and send our team," she says, her frown returning. "I still think locking Maddie in a Loup cage is a better option than letting her go on this mission."

"Luang will be in charge, he's a white-tiger shapeshifter with Ming Xiang along for magic help, Kris Madden from Heavy who is not bad in a fight and a technical expert, an Agogite as well, then Tim Domasca along as medical help, so she'll have a decent team to back her up," he says with a shrug and frown of his own. "I can't afford to send any of the alphas until the aftershocks of this settle down, especially since Roland has picked this as a time to open negotiations."

"Wait. What did you just say?" she says, leaning forward anxiously.

"An Emissary from Roland is being escorted here from where she showed up in Dallas," he says after another drink. "Not sure what to talk about, yet. She'll be here in less than a day. And _we_ need to talk to Odin once I'm done talking with Tony when the magic returns."

"What do you need to talk to Odin about?" she asks, frowning and narrowing her eyes at him.

"Another plan you are not going to like," he says with a shake of his head.

Tony sits up with a start on the thin mat he had laid on in the servant quarters, a sound coming through the window rousing him from resting his eyes, not capable of sleeping unless thoroughly exhausted and drained. A distant thumping in the night reaches him, only the faintest of sounds but he knows what it must be, the only thing it could be with the tech still up and he being in enemy territory, a helicopter. He grabs the pack he has ready and waiting at the foot of the bed, already wearing the new set of leather armor and most of his gear. He slings his quiver and pack, straps his sword to his hip and throws the cloak on as he starts to run from the room, elbowing the mirror hard to shatter it as he leaves.

His dad had drilled into him that if he spends the night someplace unfamiliar have a bolt hole ready every time, otherwise you may be cornered and have to defend with no other options. He runs full out with his bow in hand as he makes the three turns that takes him to the ground floor exit and he pulls out a glass caplet from his belt as he moves. He closes the door behind him and once a few yards away he spins and hurls the caplet at the door while still running, shattering it and releasing the wolfsbane within it. He catches a bare hint of it before being far enough away to be unaffected, his sense of smell still better than a shapeshifter's as he runs through the wild forest away from his enemies, though not necessarily safety.

The man who exits the helicopter on the rooftop is garbed in traditional Indian attire to include a properly wrapped turban with fine silk robes and a sash around his waist along with a curved sword and dagger there. His dark beard covers his olive skin, classic Hindi features to include brown eyes, bushy eyebrows and solid nose. The helicopter had circled twice, inspecting the damage done to the roof of the castle deep in the forest, miles and miles from the Capital of Old Dehli and the master's voice. The man is inspecting the area critically with his dark eyes as the pilot shuts down the bird and going through post flight procedures.

A woman exits next from the bird, wearing baggy and flowing pantaloons over sandaled feet and with a sari on, all in dark green and of very thin cotton, baring no weapons. She steps away from the helicopter and raises her head, her nose fluttering and taking in the scents of the local area. She turns her head to look at the man who simply nods, the pair having worked together for years, and the woman goes to the hole in the roof across from where they had landed. She squats by the hole then drops down through it without making a sound, the man waiting and continuing to survey the area.

An hour later the woman reappears out of the hole, climbing out with no difficulty and approaches the man, obviously the senior of the two.

"The Phylactery is destroyed, utterly, the body that protected it in pebbles," she says in Hindi. "There is a scent of a young man, American I would guess by the mix of scents, who was here until just before we arrived. He heard us coming and was out fast, shattering a mirror which it appears he was using to communicate back to his homeland. The timing for his departure does not match up with human hearing, a shapeshifter would be unable to have heard us."

The man frowns in thought at that, "Continue."

"He raided the armory for rations and some equipment, then fled into the forest, northeast," she says, gesturing to the sight of distant mountains and green wilderness.

"Begin the hunt," the man says, pulling out one of the rare cellular phones from the helicopter.

The woman smiles a feline smile and drops back down into the hole to chase down her prey.

"He's not answering," Autumn says as she frowns hard at the slightly glowing mirror in the late afternoon light behind the cabin. "The mirror must be broken."

She pulls out ingredients from her pouches and kneels with a bowl, pouring water into it then chanting and giving a command word, the water turning blue for a pair of seconds then clear again.

"He's alive and healthy," she says with a sigh of relief, Maddie with a hard face on next to Richard a pair of yards away.

"You have the revised packing list and instructions, do you have any questions?" Richard asks Luang, who is standing nearby in his human form, wearing his plate armor that looks like traditional Mongolian armor from Ghengis' time. The scale armor is decorated in traditional Chinese style, as is the armor of the rest of those going except for Maddie's, the designs on them of himself in warrior and animal form and colored white and black to match.

"I have none, Khan," he says with a bow of respect. "I shall find your son and reunite him with his mate and with his father."

Richard nods then turns to Maddie, her face serious and eyes dark, and he pulls her into a hug that surprises her, but she returns it after only a moment to recover.

"I'd say be careful, but you can't do that and accomplish the mission," he says quietly into her hair too softly for others to hear. "But do not take unnecessary risks, there is no safety net anymore, no one else I can send to help. You will be completely beyond my reach once you pass El Paso."

"I understand," she says equally quietly, giving him a squeeze. "Thank you."

She turns and joins the others who have begun mounting the feathered fliers, all bright purple in the afternoon light except for Trixie who is sitting as though she were an eagle, save for her long neck, scaled hide and tail, Maddie small on her back with extra supplies. The flier had been changed as an after effect of Autumn's magic into the classic European vision of a dragon, bronze scales dull but strong and her head well over two feet long. Her body is smaller than expected, but her wingspan is far larger, made for strong powered flight and high maneuverability.

The group takes off with Maddie waiting until the others have a few hundred meters on her before taking off herself, a crowd gathered in the area to see off their warriors. Autumn is standing next to him and with a pensive expression on her face as her adopted niece rides into danger.

"How can you be so calm?" she murmurs to him.

His mouth twitches with a smile, "When I rescued her and I spoke with her about living with me, I asked her what she needed. She said she needed a hero, that she wanted to become that person… and she has."

Tony stares at the river with a frown, running over options to cross it in his head, none of them quick and all of them involving him getting wet with unknown threats in the water. He looks upstream to his left, then downstream to his right, then turns and starts tracing the bank from a distance, but within view. It has taken him two days to reach this point and he can feel the jungle watching him from the deeps of the vegetation and on the branches. On his first day he had slowed and examined some flowers while keeping his distance, remembering the teaching that if it looks pretty it is probably able to kill you. The second day he had encountered a large cat-like creature that smelled like wild magic, spit out from the shift, and he had dropped it with one of the normal arrows from the armory in one shot.

The creature looked like a panther but it had rubbery tentacles extending from its shoulders with weird fang filled pincers that looked like a fleshy venus fly trap. He had hesitated at butchering it, still having MREs, but deciding he needed to conserve his sealed rations as much as possible, so had hastily butchered the animal and taking the pair of muscular hindquarters with him. When the sun rose he had rested after using magic to create a flame on his sword and roast strips of the meat to be safe to eat. Later that day he ditched the remainder after pulling a few more strips off to eat, the meat starting to go bad and he was uncomfortable with the possibility of making himself a target to other predators by toting it around.

He had moved northeast when he left the castle, knowing that on the other side of that mountain range is China, and even though it is a daunting task, it is climbable. He is keeping his senses open, searching for a bridge or something, figuring that the river is likely to split into smaller water courses further upstream and maybe fordable. With that in mind, he freezes in mid step, the feeling of someone watching him changing from a general sense to something specific. His nose flutters under his mask, his eyes narrow and he shifts ever so slightly, turning slightly towards where he can hear the breathing and heartbeat of his pursuer.

Forty yards away, in the gloom under a thick bush and behind a log is a crouched figure looking at him with predator eyes, stalking him. He draws and fires at a speed borne of repetition and enhanced senses, but for all that he is still just human and can only will his muscles to move so fast. His target has shifted and the mundane arrow misses, but another is on the string as a were-jaguar in warrior form leaps into the air and bounces off of a tree towards him, arms spread. Tony can tell it is a female, and would stand close to seven feet tall, lithe and lightning fast, her form telling him she has some training.

But since she is airborne she is unable to change course, so Tony fires, placing the arrow square in her chest while dodging to the side outside of her attack. The arrow has no silver, so even though the narrow blade pierced through the side of the solar plexus at an angle and destroys the junction between her lungs, it does not immediately kill. The damage does cause the snarling and turning shapeshifter to choke on her own blood and suddenly stumble as she starts to drown from the internal bleeding.

Tony has no idea if shapeshifters here are aligned with the main guy in charge who the Lich worked for, so he fires another mundane arrow instead of his enchanted ones, of which he only has so many. This arrow takes the shapeshifter in the knee, tearing the joint apart and dropping the were-leopard to the ground with a gurgled snarl towards Tony.

"I have no quarrel with you, I just want to go home," he says, though pretty sure the woman in monster form does not speak English.

He turns and jogs into the jungle, leaving his wounded opponent snarling and choking on a slowly healing wound in its chest and with a crippled leg.

Maddie soars high above the dark stain on the landscape below, what was once the location of Los Angeles, but is today known only as the Mire. The city had been hit extremely hard when the Shift happened, the local area augmented by man with technology to make it habitable and destroying the local ecosystem in the process. When the magic returned mother earth wreaked vengeance on man, a tsunami sweeping inland hours after magic bathed the world for the first time in millennia. The devastation left nearly no survivors, and when refugees were asked later what was left, they had simply stammered Mire, and Maddie now looks down at what had frightened them so.

Below is untamed wilderness that would look more familiar to the swamps of Louisiana than the previously temperate forest or dry planes that had resided here before. The trees are not the bright emerald of a healthy forest but a dark green that seems to suck the light from its surroundings, a blight on the land and unhealthy. Some attempts had been made to send salvage teams in for reclamation of the resources that everyone knew still resided within its murky depths, but no one ever returned from an expedition further than a hundred yards. The government simply labeled the entire area a hazard zone and cordoned it off, focusing on more easily attained resources.

As Maddie looks down at the Mire while they skirt the southern edge of it, she is conflicted with emotions, angry at those who took her mate from her, concern for Tony and his safety, but also a part of her astonished and awed at the view of the horizon from a few thousand feet over the ground. Recent events seem to be speeding up, more things happening to the Horde and ever since she had gone through the Agoge she cannot ignore it, even if she wanted to. She corrects most people that say that Rick is her father, in part because her real father died trying to keep her safe, even though he was no alpha and could not even hold a warrior form. Mostly, though, it is because it is too close to the truth, that and she does not want favoritism because of her position, she wants to earn what she gets with her own merit.

Her thoughts are interrupted as Luang shouts from his own mount and gestures to the sea ahead and to their left and Maddie squints her eyes against the glare of the sun on the water. There in the distance is a speck on the water, a large steel ship painted a grey close to the color of the water. She banks Trixie towards the ship, the other fliers riding in a V behind her to make their own flight easier, using the air currents to their advantage and soon they are circling the US Navy ship.

After three turns around a set of signal flags raise, and Maddie glances at Lu, who is getting hand signals from another one of their party, Kris, who can read the flags. Lu signals them all to land, him first then the others to follow, Maddie last. They all acknowledge and take turns gliding down to the ship and landing on the back deck, what used to be a pad for a helicopter there.

Maddie decides to make the sailors a little excitement when her turn comes and she puts Trixie into a dive towards the deck a thousand feet below.

"What in the name of Poseidon is that?" the ship's Captain says from the observation deck as he holds binoculars to his eyes, looking at the dragon circling above.

"It's a recent modification some of the magic users at the Houston Mage Academy that work with the Khan has managed to turn the Ptactors into with patience and care," Lu says from where he stands next to the Navy officer.

The Captain, only a Lieutenant Commander by rank but holding the position on the ship, is still looking skyward with a shake of his head.

"I think I have a sense of scale… but that's a real dragon," he says with awe in his tone.

"We are calling it a wyvern," Lu says as the dragon tucks its wings and arrows down towards the water just behind the ship.

"What - !" the Captain exclaims as it falls then snaps its wings open and beats the air into submission, halting its flight just above the water, kicking a wave up against the stern of the ship.

The wyvern hovers and shifts forward, then lands its clawed feet on the deck of the former helipad, holding its wings open for a moment then tucking them tight to its sides. The Captain has his mouth open and staring at what looks like something from a fantasy novel, not a creature in the real world. On the other hand the world is a screwed up place and he has seen more impossible things since joining the Navy, he reflects. As odd as this is, it is not actually the weirdest thing he has seen, he did watch the fall and capture of New Orleans from a mile off shore some years ago, after all.

"Who's the pilot? He's got a steel pair on him," the Captain says with a toss of his head. "Though I'd prefer him not doing that again, it scares the crew."

"The rider and owner of that dragon is Madelyn Summers, adopted daughter of the Khan, wolf of the Horde, and my second on this mission, an Agogite like myself," Luang says in formal tones, his expression flat and his body posture stiff as the Captain turns to look at him in surprise at the tone as well as the pilot's identity, the senior Chief of Boat nodding her head in approval.

"Well, I guess we should get the VIP quarters prepped for her then," he says, glancing at the Chief.

"There is no need, we will bunk together near our mounts for the journey, we have endured worse," he says, dismissing the offer. "A piece of advice to the Captain to spread among the crew, if I may?"

"Go ahead," the Captain says, the weirdness of this adventure climbing.

"I would refrain from referring to Neptune or Poseidon in her presence, as she killed him some months ago and it may cause some embarrassment on your part," he says.

The Captain simply blinks and stares for a moment to absorb that before being able to speak.

"Okay, we'll pass the word," the Captain says.

"If you will follow me, Mr. Xiang," the Chief says as she escorts him from the deck, a half smile on her face.

Tony pauses in his movement as he hears a scream of agony in the distance, through the trees to his west, a few hundred yards away. The sound is familiar, a roar that has a tint of humanity in it, a shapeshifter crying out reflexively in pain. He glances around, keenly aware of his surroundings though not as acutely as when magic is in control of the world, tech currently clenching it tight. He grits his teeth and makes a snap decision, for good or ill, and jogs silently through the trees to the source of the sound.

He eases quietly through the brush downwind of the sounds, now identifying it as two human/shapeshifter heartbeats and another, much larger creature, reptilian. He pauses his movement, still deep in the dimness of the brush underneath the bare crescent of a moon filtering only a single moonbeam to touch the ground. To his enhanced senses, however, the forest is alive with color and sound that is undetectable to normal human vision but looks to him like a black light has been turned on and everything glows.

In a small clearing only a dozen yards across and oblong, twenty yards lengthwise, are the three creatures, one a spotted jaguar lying on the ground, another a were-leopard in warrior form and the last creature holding the warrior in its long snakelike coils. The snake would be thirty yards and the thickness is about a foot in diameter a pair of feet from the tip, and slightly narrower before the head, which is a scaled covered human skull with sunken eyes and dripping fangs. A Naga.

Tony had read about them in the book he took from the castle, either snakes with multiple heads or with human features they may have control over rain, rivers and lakes, so water in general, and may cause earthquakes. Tony mentally evaluates the Naga, noting the thick body and he strains in an attempt to locate the heart within its body, but frowns, the distance too great to localize it and any arrow but his special black fletched ones may not penetrate, and he is husbanding those. He eases a mundane arrow from his quiver to his bowstring, his target going to be the creature's eye, but it is moving in an unpredictable manner. He glances around and picks up a stick nearby and looks back at the scene before him again.

The Naga is saying something to the shapeshifter, its tone taunting as it tightens its body and Tony can hear the crack of a bone from the victim's body. Tony tosses the stick off to the side and closer to the pair, and the Naga turns its head in a blur as the stick rattles the ground. Tony releases the arrow and it flies straight, hitting the bridge of the nose before piercing the right eye, but the angle was bad so it does not pierce the brain.

The Naga thrashes as Tony moves from his firing position and circling closer as he seats another arrow, straining to locate the heart in the long body. The shapeshifter in its grip is squeezed tighter and he hears a rib break, deciding it is time for more direct action, emerging from cover. The Naga fixates its remaining eye on him and the head lunges at him while the body flings the previous victim to the side, which crashes into a tree with a heavy thud. Tony pulls and fires into the open maw, the arrow striking through the soft tissue of the mouth and throat into the spine behind it.

The Naga dies but still spasms as Tony dodges out of immediate reach, his focus now on the two remaining unknowns in the vicinity. As the thrashing slows he hears a rustle where the shapeshifter had been thrown, and the weak heartbeat of the injured male on the ground gone now, dead. He moves closer and resumes hiding in the brush as the warrior form were-leopard limps out of the other side of the clearing holding one bent arm to its side, eyes darting back and forth. Tony now recognizes the scent as the female he had run into the other day, and she is likely doing the same. He slowly emerges into the open area, cautious and ready.

"I am sorry for your friend," Tony says in a slightly soothing gesture to the dead jaguar, easily twice the size of any natural jaguar he has ever heard of, he figures it must be a shapeshifter but the ones back home shifted to human when dead. The were-leopard's green flashing eyes dart to him as the warrior takes deep, ragged breaths, Tony is guessing the shapeshifter is on the edge of losing control. "I will be along my way, I'm just trying to get home."

He starts to ease back when the shapeshifter shakes its head to clear it and speaks in broken English, "Whh-ate. Whroo arrr hoo?"

The large maw is not made for words, much less those of another language than its native tongue, and Tony pauses to consider his response, then mentally slapping his forehead. He shifts his bow to his right hand and with his left hand open he slowly reaches to a pouch on his belt and pulls out a small gold medallion with an emerald in the center. He slips the medallion over his head, the carved cuneiform markings glittering slightly in the moonlight and he settles the metal against his skin. Aunt A, being nearly as paranoid as his father, had gifted her entire family with a medallion each, which she had named a Babylon's Blessings Medallion. He speaks a short phrase and the activation word while pushing his own internal store of magic into it, the tech gripping the world currently, which causes a ringing of his ears and a buzz in his head which quickly passes.

"Do you understand my words?" he asks carefully.

The female twists its head in surprise, "You speak our language?"

"This allows me to, yes," he says, gesturing at the medallion that is now under his armor and shirt. "I am a traveler from a distant land," his senses still searching for possible attackers sneaking up on him.

"What land?" she asks, slowly, eyes narrowed at where Tony crouches in the brush a dozen yards away. "You were speaking Eng-lish a moment ago, but you are not a Britain are you?"

Tony pauses again, wondering if he should lie or tell the truth, but figures there is a chance the cat could smell the lie on his skin, so he tells the truth.

"I'm from America, from Texas," he says clearly.

She studies the brush separating them which obscures his figure, then glancing at the dead male's body a few yards away and pausing.

It is a quick look and her expression is difficult to read, and to even another shapeshifter, seeing the change of her face in the darkness would be extremely difficult, so her emotions would be unknown. But the night is as clear to Tony as daytime, and it is not the woman's expression that tell him she just suffered a great loss, but the cast of her eyes.

He moves without conscious thought, stepping from the brush to be only a handful of yards away, pulling the arrow from his string and replacing it next to the others on the side of his pack. The leopard turns and looks at him, her eyes narrowed and studying him in more detail than their quick encounter from before. The cat's eyes rest on his bow for a long pair of breaths, her breath losing the strain it had retained from the fight as she studies the bow's details. She looks up from the bow and nods her head deeply as she makes eye contact with him then down in submission.

"Rama," she says, her tone conveying respect.

Tony quirks an eyebrow under his mask, the word a name or title if he recalls from perusing the book on this region, but unsure of its meaning, hoping it is not bad. One thing he knows for sure, though, is that she just address him the way the Horde talks to his father, a part of his head wondering if he just picked up a groupie.

Maddie looks up from where she had been stealing glances at the pair of small mirrors sitting on the desk in the room she shares with Ming Xiang, the others in a four bunk room compared to this one with two bunks. Both mirrors are carefully carved to act as a communications device over distance, one keyed to Aunt A, the other to one that Tony knows how to make, so she can relay and speak to him. When and if he gets time to carve another mirrors to speak over distances, God only knows what he's going through to survive right now or what challenges he's facing.

A soft knocking at the door causes her to glance at Ming, who shrugs with a frown, the sealed doors causing the shapeshifters discomfort. Normally they could tell who was approaching by their scent, but the waterproof doors were scent proof, so they were relying more on sound than scent at the moment in the ship. Maddie goes to the door, having identified Luang's step as he approached and mentally noting that Ming is not as aware of the gaits of the party, filing the information away for later.

"Lu," she says simply, tilting her head as she opens the door a crack.

"We have dinner with the Captain tonight at eight o'clock," he says directly.

"I didn't bring anything formal," Maddie says with a frown, unhappy that she is not in charge, though recognizing that Luang did graduate the Agoge with an even score with her own, save for the physical trials, his size lending him the advantage.

"The Captain acknowledges this and it shall be a casual affair," Luang says with a nod and a firm tone, one of the few people to be able to address her that way without making her hackles rise.

"You're leading the group, why do I have to go?" she says in a low tone, the conversation transparently private.

"He knows your relationship to the Khan and is likely paying the proper respect to his passengers and their positions in regards to the President of the United States," Lu says in the same low tone. "We eat with them, speak politely and we continue on our way. The crew gets some stories to tell in port for their trouble. It is a small price for the distance traveled and the favor given by the President for secure travel to and from our goal."

"And we may be fighting beside them if we run into trouble, cuz I'm not going to trust anyone with our safety but us," Maddie says with a nod and a frown. "I'll try to look nice."

"I suggest your vest, minimal weapons and jeans," Luang says with a bob of his head.

"Here I thought you would tell me to leave my weapons behind," she comments with a raised eyebrow.

He smiles at her, "You remember the lesson as well as I, I believe. 'Do not give an order you know will not be followed'."

She smiles, the first real smile since Tony had gone missing, "You know me so well, battle buddy."

"Do not be late," Lu says, turning from the door and heading to his own room.

Tony walks down a faint path in the undergrowth behind the were-leopard in warrior form who had called herself Bagira and asked him to her village, promising safe passage and repayment for saving her life against the Naga. He feels like there is more to it than that, but she had been extremely insistent and he had conceded, though his senses are dialed up to the max as they enter a large cleared area in the jungle, revealing a few dozen small, one story houses. The style is simple but he notes the attention to detail of the fitted bricks making up the buildings with rough wooden roofing and mortar filling the cracks between boards. His nose tells him that everyone here is a shapeshifter as he is assaulted with the scents of nearly a hundred people, and he wriggles his nose at an unfamiliar tint to it, the same as Bagira's.

"What is that underscent," he murmurs to Bagira, glancing around through his mask, dawn lightening the sky to the east and beginning to bathe the magic drenched world with light.

"We are not the shapeshifters you know from your land," she says after a pause, glancing back as she turns to him and speaking in a low tone as well, the dead jaguar across her shoulders. "We are not as you are used to. We are truly animali."

Tony furrows his brown in thought, knowing the charm for translation is imperfect, so he is missing the nuance of that word. His aunt had explained that the northern Native Americans had a hundred words for snow, and the Chinese had extremely subtle words that meant the same thing but slightly different in different contexts, making English look like a language of inept children in comparison. They walk to the far end of the double line of single story shelters that sports a small market at the far side, three shops of gathered fruits and vegetables and one with meat, flies kept at bay by a trio of youths that are probably not more than twelve using pairs of sticks to kill the insects. He tilts his head as he looks at them, seeing not kids at work, but early training in using a weapon against an agile foe, his time training with his father and the Xiangs kicking in.

From a pair of houses at the end of the street emerges a tiger like none he has ever seen before, but of which the Xiangs have told him tales of, a blue tiger. Huge by the standards of nature, the tiger is five feet at the shoulder and would probably match his father's animal form in weight, though narrower in the shoulders and longer in length. But where the Khan is undeniably a primordial sabre tooth tiger reborn in the modern age with huge canines and a bob tail, this tiger matches the proportions of modern day tigers. Where it differs is in the silvery cobalt tinting of the fur between its stripes across its back, head and tail.

The tiger pushes to his hind legs while walking and shifts to human form while making eye contact with Tony, his attention focused and he returns the attention while trying to keep track of his surroundings. The shapeshifter turns into an olive skinned and dark eyed stereotype of a Hindu man, but stands close to seven feet tall with chiseled muscles and a powerful build. Tony narrows his eyes beneath his mask as he looks at the man's face, the cast of it and the other handful of human formed shapeshifters niggling at his thoughts. There's something off with their features, not wrong, but different, broader, more generic.

The man has dark hair falling to his shoulders that he pulls back behind his head into a knot without breaking stride and eye contact with Tony, revealing his sharp features, and it hits him. He remembers the look in a psychology book he'd tested out of that showed old genetic deformities that were tolerated before the Shift made it impossible to cater to every natural shortcoming. The people remind him of Downs Syndrome, having a look as though they were cut from a mold or generic in form and appearance, as though trying to look human without actually being human. That's when he realizes why the jaguar didn't shift back to human when he died, the shapeshifter wasn't a human with Lyc-V, it was an animal infected with Lyc-V to become an animal-were.

He hesitates in his step as the reality crashes into him and he tries to adjust his mindset to compensate. His father had no issues with animal-weres and he did not know they existed before travelling to Houston, so he carries no personal prejudices. He does, however, know they are extremely rare in nature and that other were-animals kill them on site, thinking them an abomination. He also recalls that most have only moron level intelligence, few intelligent enough to fit into normal human society. Glancing around he can see that most of the two dozen he can see in the area have an intelligent look to them, so he wonders how this has happened, though more concerned with the next few minutes to care much.

"What is this?" the tiger in human form asks in a rough tone with a direct glare at the leopard-were, his own eyes roaming and not focusing on any point but his surroundings in general.

"He spared my life when I tried to kill him on a hunt, then saved me from a Naga last night when he had no need to," the leopard says while dropping to a knee and pushing the dead jaguar to the side. "I am life-debted to him."

The man's nose flutters and he walks up to Tony, who keeps his awareness open and watching all his surroundings while not meeting the tiger's gaze. In a society of predators he would have to either challenge or submit if he made eye contact again. The tiger had called a draw to their initial meeting of eyes by looking to the leopard, but if he meets his eyes again he will have to either submit or challenge him. He stops a yard from him, within arm's reach of the large man and nearly into Tony's personal space.

"He smells of meat," the tiger says in a rough man's voice.

"I killed a beast and kept it for a pair of days as provisions," Tony says without being addressed, his eyes looking over the man's shoulder. "I am no one's meat."

"He fired his bow with great accuracy and speed, he killed the Naga with but two arrows in the space of a single breath," Bagira says from where she is still kneeling.

The hair on Tony's neck tingles and he slowly places his bow on his back, knowing that if the man attacks he will not have time to fire his bow, he will have to use a blade. The man looks at Tony with a speculative look and tilts his head to the side with narrowed eyes as he studies him.

"Remove your mask, archer," he says, his tone commanding and Tony takes a breath, instinct wanting to rebel against him but now stuck in this situation one way or another.

He reaches up with his left hand and pulls his mask off slowly then tucking it in his belt, the tiger in man's skin blinking and his head stiffening as he takes in the kaleidoscope of colors on the scarred half of his face. He leans his head forward on his neck and studies Tony's scars critically as Tony tenses and prepares for an attack or anything else. After a pair of breaths the tiger leans back to a full upright position and towers over Tony with slight curiosity.

"Who are you, and why are you here?" he asks, his tone demanding.

"I am from Texas, in America," Tony says, still looking at his surroundings and on edge. "I was brought here against my will by an undead and escaped. I am travelling home."

"We know of that _thing_ ," the tiger says with a snarl and spitting to the side, everyone within earshot doing the same and making the local approximation of the evil eye. "You are its enemy?"

"I was," Tony says with a nod. "But it is destroyed. If it was your enemy, it is no more."

"I have seen others claim the same," the tiger says with a shake of his human head. "If his body is destroyed, he returns with another. He cannot be killed."

"Not true," Tony says with a shake of his head, looking through the human chest across from him. "His spirit had a container, and I destroyed it. He is truly banished, I swear it."

The tiger studies him for a pair of breaths, "You destroyed him?"

"He is Rama, returned," Bagira says as she looks over her shoulder at Tony, then at the tiger.

"Silence," the tiger growls and the leopard ducks its head and stares again at the ground as the tiger returns his gaze to Tony, who still refuses to meet his eyes.

"Stay with us," the tiger says, gesturing at the small village. "With the enemy gone and your help we can be prosperous and grow past the hunters who seek to purge us from our own land."

Tony frowns, shaking his head slowly, "I empathize, but this is not my fight. I have a woman back home that I love and must return to, a family and friends waiting for me. I am needed there."

"Then why did you save my panther, if not to help us and to stay?" the tiger asks, his head tilting slightly in puzzlement, correcting his imperfect identification of the other shapeshifter.

"I heard suffering and cruelty and could not let it stand," Tony says with a slight toss of his head. "It is not my nature," his tone singsong in the Viking fashion as the simple statements cause him to fall into that habit.

"Rama," the panther says in a soft tone, others in the area repeating the word.

"Silence!" the man says with a growl that would do his animal form justice, everyone immediately quiet.

"You wish to be on your way?" the man-tiger asks, looking at him with curiosity.

"That is all," Tony says with a nod, glancing at the man for a moment.

"I understand," the man says, turning away.

Tony has not relaxed, his family riddled with paranoia and ingraining it deeply within his own instincts, even over so short a time with them. Despite his attention to detail, his senses are tuned for sensitivity, not the slowed time distortion when adrenaline hits his system during combat and which hinders his understanding of spoken words. So, though he senses the sudden attack from the tiger-were, he is too slow with his human reflexes to trigger his combat reactions and avoid the blow. The right backhand from the shapeshifter crashes into his chest and grazes his face, splitting his lip and bruising his right cheek.

He careens a half dozen yards through a display of fruits and into the wall behind it, falling to the ground with a cracked sternum, a broken rib, a throbbing pair of kidneys and a hurt back. The pain overrides his system for a moment, his overly sensitive senses on fire from the damaged nerve endings. He pushes himself to a knee and reaches to the side to right himself as he becomes aware of his surroundings, the man-tiger now only a pair of yards away and striding through the wreckage of the market stall.

The tiger makes a quick motion of his hands then grasps Tony's hair firmly and tilts his head back with a jerk, eliciting a gasp from him. He is chanting something Tony does not recognize, his focus on his medallion shattered by the blow and the flow of magic to allow him to understand the language stopping. The tiger squeezes his right fist over Tony's mouth and blood drips down onto his tongue and across his nose, the burn of LycV infecting his system grabbing his attention and causing his mind to focus.

He slows his perceptions, allowing him a moment of dulled pain and increased focus to gather his magic and he shoves the virus from him forcefully before it can take root like the Imortuus pathogen had. The slowed perception of time means he does not verbally understand the word of power in the old language of magic used by the tiger, but the reverberation of it in his soul tells him it's meaning. _Mine_.

Tony ignores the gag reflex and shoves with not only his mind but with his magic, as the power of the tiger-were tries to overcome him, searing his being with power as he holds his shields, the attack pushing and then _bouncing_ off of his defenses. The attempt to infect him and own him averted, he shoves against the hands grabbing his wrists to keep him from fighting. The tiger-were stumbles a step back at Tony's reaction, not from the brute force of it, but because he resisted a power word and fought back so completely. Tony rises to his feet and draws his katana, flicking it absently to the side as the blade glows, blue mist rising from it in the early morning light.

"Ra-ma… Ra-ma… Ra-ma…" comes a low chant from the surrounding shapeshifters as Tony shifts slowly to a wider stance, his focus locked in battle mind and his perceptions slowed to allow him to react and fight nearly as fast as a shapeshifter.

The tiger sheds his human skin and bristles into an eight foot tall monstrosity of man and tiger blended together into a generically imperfect melding, cobalt fur between stripes and an unevenly filled toothy maw. Tony has not waited for the shift, but moved forward and shifted left in a sliding lunge while cutting down with his half raised sword. The enchanted blade cuts just below the tiger's right knee, removing the limb entirely. The falling warrior tries to shift and backhand Tony, who has already twisted and thrust his sword into the monster's chest from an angle, piercing the heart by a mere inch while moving backwards to remain out of range of his claws, twisting the blade before withdrawing it.

The tiger falls and his struggles are feeble and stilling a pair of breaths after Tony's second attack, the destroyed heart failing to knit together fast enough, despite the adrenaline dump in its system. Tony slowly turns a full circle until his sword is held high and he waits for his next attacker, which never comes. Instead, as time returns to normal in his mind, his ears understand the chant from the forty shapeshifters arrayed around him, and he wonders what he just got himself into.

"Ra-ma, Ra-ma, Ra-ma…"

Maddie is on the deck of the ship in the late afternoon light, leaning on the railing and staring off of the bow to the west when the Captain approaches her from behind. She turns to glance at him, knowing most humans are disconcerted with Shapeshifter senses and visually acknowledging them eases the strain. The Captain, a man in his late thirties nods a greeting with a tight smile and stands at the rail an arm's length to her side.

"Are you enjoying the journey so far?" the Captain asks, glancing sidelong, and Maddie can sense the man's curiosity under his gaze.

"To answer you unasked question, Captain, yes, I am as young as I look, sixteen years old," she says, turning her head to look at him, her gaze the one she shares with those who are her enemies.

The Captain gulps involuntarily, having seen similar looks on seasoned combat operatives he has transported, what the military refers to as the "thousand yard stare", the person looking through you as though you were a thing, not a person. Maddie returns her eyes to the sea and the distantly setting sun.

"My father is grateful for your assistance in allowing us passage on your ship, as am I," she says with no emotion in her voice.

"I have heard that you have extensive combat training, and that you were in New Orleans when it was liberated," he says, pausing to phrase his words. "I would like to personally thank you, as well as convey the thanks from my crew."

Maddie turns and looks at him with a frown of puzzlement, "I don't understand."

The Captain frowns, "I was a junior officer at the time, watching the chaos unfold from a pair of miles off shore when New Orleans fell the first time. The magic had wreaked havoc on our communications and the flotilla commander made the call to keep our distance. He felt that it was too dangerous to risk sending any additional forces in, once it was reported that the initial reaction force failed to establish a foothold. Many of us that were there felt we should have done more to try and save the city."

She studies him carefully for a moment, then speaks in a muted voice that has a gentle tone beneath it, much at odds to the hardened expression of before.

"I assume you have Top Secret clearance, Captain?" she asks, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Yes," he says with a nod. "But we still compartmentalize for need to know, of course."

Her mouth twitches in a humorless smile for a moment, "Of course they do." The words come out sardonic and she continues, "The foothold succeeded, the unit that was sent in lived for some time, though eventually they died, one by one when no help came, though it had been promised by the Commodore after they had secured their position."

The Captain straightens and takes a deep breath, his jaw clenching before speaking again in a hard tone of his own, "How could you know that to be true? Were survivors found when New Orleans was retaken?"

Maddie snorts, "You know who my adopted father is, right?"

"Richard Michaels, leader of the shapeshifters in Texas and surrounding areas," the Captain says with a nod. "He was military, infantry from what I've gleaned and that allowed him to rise quickly in the shapeshifter community before taking the top position in the area."

"He was the sole surviving member of the Ghost Battalion's platoon that secured that foothold," she says with a bitter smile, revealing what he knows to be true about the unit that had been sent in, that information compartmentalized and not shared outside of very few in the military, he only recently having discovered the information as a Field Grade Ship's Captain. "They contacted the flotilla commander after they had the foothold, but the Commodore lied to them, said help was coming… but it never did."

The Captain is looking at her profile, studying her with narrowed eyes and after absorbing that asks another question.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asks.

"That _officer_ ," she says the word as though it were dirty, sneering as she does. "He is retired but is still a player in D.C., as you well know, and he betrayed the men he was responsible for. He should be held accountable."

The Captain shakes his head, looking out to sea with her, "I can't take your word for it, second handed from Michaels."

"You don't have to," she says with a shake of her head and glancing at him. "I know there's a network of good leaders in the military, and quiet inquiries can be made. You will find it's true and the truth can come out. The rot can then be cut out."

The Captain frowns as though he had bitten something sour, "That will take time and favors."

"I promise you that an inquiry has already started from the very top of the US government," she says with a twist of her head. "They are lacking cooperation from below. A few questions and inquiries in the lower levels with shake it up enough for the dam to break and justice to be served."

He glances at her again, surprised.

"How do you know this?" he asks, curious how a sixteen year old knows so much.

"I know the classification level for this mission, and I know you do as well, so I'll answer your question with two of my own," she says, turning and meeting his gaze with her own unflinching one. "Who authorized this mission? And what does that say about that person's relationship to my adopted father?"

The Captain says nothing but ponders her words and after a moment nods and bows shallowly, "I look forward to seeing you in the mess for dinner, Ms. Summers."

Maddie smirks and shakes her head, "For this mission I'm my adopted father's daughter. Until I'm back home with my mate, I'm Madelyn Michaels."

Tony looks at the scattered groups of shapeshifters in the late morning light, having spent an hour healing his damaged body then another three hours convincing the village that he cannot stay and lead them. Now he is facing Bagira and trying to convince her that she does not need to accompany him on his journey but meeting stony resistance. His heart is not in it, though, as exhaustion drags on his limbs from the expenditure of magic to heal himself, wishing he could sleep.

"My mate is dead," she says with a shake of her head, gesturing to the plot of jungle floor that is reserved for burials. "And you saved my life after sparing it when I tried to kill you. I owe you my life and will serve you until my debt is repaid in full."

Tony frowns tightly, wearing his mask again to protect his sensitive skin from the sun, "Well, that shouldn't take long, I suppose. God knows I'm going to be running into danger soon enough, I do have whoever owns this region after me soon enough for killing his Lich."

"He has no sight here," she says as she waves at the pocket valley around them. "A day and a half from the thing's lair we own the forest, and the thing's master is still trying to make inroads, but the magic of this land is still strong from the last age of magic, giving us dominion over most of the land."

"Who is 'us'?" Tony asks, curious as he packs provisions the village had provided for the trip, them sitting behind Bagira's small hut.

"We, the beasts and the people of the land, who rightly deserve to rule here, not the abominations that have been created to mock the proper cycle of life and death," she says with heat in her voice and face, now in human form, resembling a dark skinned and black haired woman of average looks and plain appearance of the region with a simply styled local dress wrapped around her.

"Sounds like a long conversation," Tony says under his breath with a sigh. "We'll talk about that later, but first thing's first. If you're coming with me, you have to stop calling me Rama."

"But you are obviously the seventh avatar of Vishnu, the Archer who battles for his love and is destined to set the people free of the tyranny that oppresses them," she says with the tone of a believer.

"I told you, my name is Tony Hessberg, and I'm just passing through," he says with a shake of his head, tightening the pack and shouldering it. "I'm still just a guy trying to get home. If you want to believe something else, that's fine, I can't stop you from having your own opinion, but call me Tony or if you have to, Mr. Hessberg or Hessberg for short."

"As you wish, master," she says with a duck of her head.

"And _no_ 'master'," he says with another shake of his head and pointed finger and a touch of heat in his voice. "Nothing more noble in terminology than a simple 'sir', or I swear I'll pin you to a tree and leave you behind, I still have wolfsbane and can lose your trail if I really have to."

"As you wish, mas-, Sir," she says, managing to imbue the single syllable as though it were a royal title.

"Aunt A is going to kill me for this," he mutters as they turn and head out into the jungle again, Bagira on point and Tony behind with his bow in hand.

Maddie maintains a blank expression on her face as she sits at the head table in the ship's mess as they continue to sail through the Pacific Ocean, magic having returned to the world and still no contact from Tony. They had made toasts to the President and other leaders, and she, as the youngest member of their party, made the toast to the Khan, as the military tradition dictates. The mess is not large and the Captain had said that the rest of the crew has eaten and this is the last of the eating time shifts, so they don't have to hurry. Despite that she attacks the large helping of food served, habits from the Agoge ingrained deep, that when on mission you eat when you can and waste no time.

She is kicked under the table by Lu after a few moments, a blank look on his face as she swallows the mouthful of food and glances around, noticing the rest of the room is talking and socializing while eating. She picks up her glass of water and washes down her food then forces herself to slow down and cuts her southern fried steak slowly and precisely to buy time. The Captain glances over from his seat on the other side of Luang and nods politely to Maddie.

"Ms. Michaels, if is not an inconvenience, I'm told you were in the liberation of New Orleans and I would be interested in any stories or actions you could speak of," he says, glancing at the nearby tables that Maddie notes is full of slightly more senior sailors than she expected. "Some of us were in the service at the time the city was taken and have a vested interest in what happened."

She takes a deep breath as she thinks it over for a moment, "Well, sir, I wasn't the only one there, most of the people in the group travelling with me were there also. I can tell you some of what happened, but I'm not a great storyteller."

There is a snort down the table and Maddie looks to her right where Kris Madden, the were-bear in their party, is sitting next to her, the third and final member of their party at the dinner. Kris has brown hair on a clean shaved and pale face with a solid build who stands at five foot ten when standing, and who would be defined as "padded" before having attended the Agoge. Now, one would instead define him as solid and unbreakable, having focused on lifting heavy metal to increase his strength, running not a favorite past time of his.

"Comment, Kris?" she asks, aiming for polite in front of company.

"Be real, Mad," he says, leaning back in his seat and using the nickname most of the Agogites have for her. "We're warriors, and these guys are service members," he says with a wave at the mess hall with a few dozen sailors in it tightly packed in.

He looks at the table of senior Petty officers at the next table over, "Chief, we did recon for the liberation of the city in the same way SEALs would, and participated in the breach and battle for the city with the NeoVikings and the Khan at the head of the warriors of the Horde. So, how'd you like to hear a story told in the Viking fashion by the folks that were there on the ground?" he asks, gesturing to the three Agogites at the table.

Maddie starts to speak, but stops when Luang brushes her arm with his own, a subtle gesture to let it go. Maddie keeps quiet, mentally acknowledging that Kris was in the military for five years before getting out to open a gun shop in Houston.

"I don't think anyone would object in the least," the old sailor says, his short hair black with peppers of grey in it and a rough jaw with a growing smile.

"If it's okay with Luang and the Captain," Kris continues, nodding respectfully at the two down the table from him. "Let us finish our food up, shapeshifters do eat more than normal people, then we'll tell it, so we're not distracted and let our food get cold."

"That sounds fine, Mr. Madden," the Captain says with a nod and a glance at Luang, who nods as well.

Maddie mentally sighs and shrugs, "Heck, if we're telling the story, might as well as well do it right. The weather forecast is clear for the night, as I recall. Let's get a group on the fore deck and tell as many as we can afford off shift."

Maddie sits on top of the gun housing for the 120mm cannon mounted on the front deck of the ship, looking at where sailors and a couple dozen Marines are crammed on the deck. Some brought chairs and sit on the edges, but most just find a space of deck and sat down, leaning against the protrusions of the deck or back to back with a mate. She raises the large mug of tea she had brought up from the galley to her lips, the night breeze of the sea drifting over the group as she looks at the stars in the clear sky. The nearly quarter moon above looks down at her, a reminder of the days since she has last seen her mate, the night of the new moon.

"As requested," the Senior Chief Petty Officer of the boat says as she walks up to Maddie with a guitar in hand, the short Hispanic woman in her forties looking like she was made of teak, hardening as she ages.

"Thank you, Chief," Maddie says, setting the insulated mug to the side and taking the guitar, picking notes to ensure it is tuned, adjusting it slightly to be accurate.

Luang is standing and leaning on the turret housing of the gun that is about hip high to her left about arm's length away, Kris to her right sitting cross legged on the turret with a smile on his face as he talks to a pair of sailors nearby. Ming sits slightly behind and to Maddie's right with a long Chinese instrument which is similar to a guitar but with sharper notes and a different style of play. Maddie plays a few loud crashing cords with her instrument, catching everyone's attention and she leans it down and looks at the group.

"Hello everyone, my name is Madelyn Michaels," she says with a wave to the fifty or so crew members on the deck. "Some of the crew has asked us to tell you about what happened in New Orleans a few months ago. As an American, I understand your need to know what happened to one of our own cities, so we're going to tell you about it."

She glance at Kris and he shifts forward and drops his legs off the edge of the turret to look out over the crew with a smile, "But after action reports are dry and boring," he says with a bit of an exaggerated sigh, to which the crowd chuckles. "So we're going to tell it to you in a different way. As you know, the Task Force assembled was comprised of US Navy, Army Rangers, a large contingent of shapeshifters from the Texas Horde, and a fleet of NeoViking ships, including one of their leaders, Thor."

"And if there is one thing the Vikings do well, it's tell a story," Maddie says, nodding and strumming the guitar. "So, we're going to tell you about the Liberation of New Orleans in the manner of a Mead Hall tale."

"We will not, however, do what the Vikings often do," Luang says with a small smile. "Exaggerate. We will tell you what really happened."

Maddie stops strumming and looks at the gathered crowd who is looking at her now, and she hits them with her hardened gaze as she speaks her next words, which no one doubts in the least, "I swear to you on my soul and my sacred honor that we will lie about nothing in this tale, that we are telling you the god honest truth as we know it."

"So, it all started a few months before the battle actually happened, when the four of us decided that we were going to try out for a training event organized by the Khan," Kris says while Maddie and Ming strum background music. "But not normal combat training, no, nothing so mundane for those of the Horde. The Khan, a former soldier in the Army's fabled Ghost Battalion would tolerate only the best training for the elite of his Horde. So he planned and devised a training that would test shapeshifters in the same way that Rangers are put to the toughest and most grueling of challenges to ensure that what emerges from the forge is the best steel possible, the most lethal warriors in the service…"

"The man threw the spear as though he were born with it in his hand and raised to hurl it as a toddler," Luang says with a sad shake of his head, reaching up and touching his left shoulder. "He struck through me and pinned me to a telephone pole."

"Now remember, he was wearing silk and plate armor, and still the spear penetrated as though it were paper," Ming says with soft strumming of her instrument.

"I was in charge of the group, and I couldn't let him be taken," Maddie says, her eyes looking at the guitar as she speaks to keep her from mentally picturing the event. "So I cut him loose and held back the forces to let the others escape."

"She is humble," Luang says with a shake of his head and an admonishing look at her. "She lobbed the shaft off inches from my chest and tossed me to another to carry, then squared off with who must have been a demi-god of strength, accepting a challenge of single unarmed combat to allow us time to escape."

A pause in the story, and one of the younger members of the crew, a young Marine, rises to the bait, "So you beat him, right?"

"I did not," she says with a sad frown. "He honored his word and his men did not chase my people, but he was a master wrestler and I had no warrior form at the time, just my human form and I was not as skilled as him in unarmed combat. He beat me, badly, and knocked me out, unconscious."

There is silence at that, and Kris picks up the story there, "My group had escaped but lost two of our own, one who died, the other too wounded to continue. The enemy consolidated their prisoners, and when the Khan arrived at the docks for a parlay, they revealed that they had captives. We Agogites that had escaped had moved to secondary positions to attack once the main force arrived."

"When my father, leading a large force to reclaim the city, saw me chained on an adjacent dock, he was less than pleased with the Greek contingent leaders he faced," Maddie says with a tight, humorless smirk.

"The magic user in his group that would keep the waters at bay and prevent the city from being flooded to keep it hostage warned them of their mistake as the Khan simply glowered at those holding his people captive," Luang says from his own seat. "Among those gathered against him was Achilles reborn, the perfect warrior from the Trojan War reincarnated in a human host with no normal abilities."

"Stop beating around the bush, Lu," Kris says with a light laugh from his position near Maddie, then looking at the group with a smile and leaning forward. "You may or not have heard, but Odin has manifested in Houston, and he brought his son, Thor, with him."

"Bullshit," one of the Chiefs leaning on a railing says with a scoff.

"I swear to God above and my mother's grave that it's true," Kris says with his hand raised. "Thor was with us, Mjolnir in hand as if fresh from the pages of Marvel, leading the Vikings, the Khan in overall command. And not long before, Odin had gifted the Khan with a sword forged by his own hand with the same metal as Mjolnir. Thor, as god of the storm, would keep the waters at bay, and the Khan would lead our forces against our enemies."

"My father had left his sword in Baton Rouge, however, while on a separate mission," Maddie says, glancing at the group while continuing to play quietly. "But as he glowered at his enemies he raised his hand and called it to him. His opponents flinched at the gesture, unsure what he was trying, then just looked at him in puzzlement. From a hundred yards away I watched the dot of the sword streak across the sky and arc down to his hand. The shock of the sonic boom slapped my captors back even from that distance, preventing them from striking us down immediately."

"The Khan's wrath was mighty and he struck one of the Greek champions down immediately, casting him into the waves to die, then engaged Achilles in single combat, the man's skin golden and impenetrable when magic returned to the world not long after the battle was joined," Lu says while gesturing for effect.

"Archers on the ship fired without hesitation at the captors while Thor yelled to the remaining leaders, ordering the ship to full oars and charge the dock with the captives," Kris says with excitement, looking at the group as they tag off telling the story. "The long boat hit with a crash while the captives held off their opponents and our two master archers on the ship covered their backs."

"The breach had begun, and the remaining ships raced for the point of the breach to reinforce it while all the crew and warriors on the crashed longboat raced to shore," Maddie says, looking out at the group, her voice rising in pitch as emotions she cannot suppress begin to bleed out. "I was freed from my bonds by my adoptive mother, Tasha, Nimir-ra of the Horde, female alpha and the Khan's wife."

"For those who don't know, think of a shield maiden on steroids cranked up to eleven," Kris interjects, to which a number of people nod appreciatively.

"We pushed through the crowd of the enemy, using stolen and recovered weapons, and I found the one who had nearly killed me earlier that day," she says with a blue flash of light in her eyes causing many to flinch in surprise. "I wasn't thinking or I would have kept my distance, but my blood was up and I attacked him while he was distracted trading attacks with Thor. Anyone able to make Thor stumble back from his attacks should be taken seriously, but I didn't hesitate, I tackled him. He quickly pinned me beneath his weight again, and I was pushing against him, his strength even greater than a shapeshifter of similar size. I tried to gouge his eyes, but he screwed them shut and my thumb was too blunt to get through the clenched eyelids."

"It is difficult, but with focus and training, it is possible for a shapeshifter to partially assume an animal or warrior form," Lu says from beside her, lifting his hand which transforms and grows striped white fur and inch long claws. "Madelyn had trained with my grandfather to do so, but had so far failed to master and manifest the ability."

"But that day I did not fail," Maddie says, lifting her right hand from the strings and black fur coating her hand with half inch black claws tipping the fingers. "Magic surged into the world and I gouged out his eye, the blood fell on my face and I began to choke on it, but still he did not relent, leaning his arm across my throat and my vision going black as I twisted my thumb and tearing up his skull."

"One of the 'master archers' we spoke of earlier was nearby and had been fighting one of the enemy's elite archers while Mad was fighting," Kris says, leaning back and making air quotes with his fingers. "He had obscured his opponent with a flashbang arrow and leapt toward Mad and the huge man she was fighting, dropping his bow and smoothly pulling his katana from its scabbard. The archer looked like an average mercenary in leather armor and mismatched but functional weapons on his person, though the armor carried a significant enchantment and his katana was no normal sword either."

"The archer bore a mask, black with white splotches upon it, marking him different than any other man upon the field," Lu says as he pulls out an identical mask from his belt and showing the crew the design reminiscent of a ghostly skull. "He lunged and cut across smoothly as he drew his weapon, severing the muscles of the arm pinning down Madelyn, then spinning and thrusting the blade through the beefy man's unprotected neck."

"I shoved him off of me, my senses dull because of his blood on my face, picking up my weapon and continuing to fight," Maddie says, looking again to the instrument. "The mercenary seemed familiar and I gave him thanks as we continued to fight with the rest of our people to secure the beach head, Thor going into the sky to battle the building storm."

"The dock had nearly exploded not long after Madelyn's fight, the Khan tackling Achilles into the water, a pair of feet from land and air, sinking a dozen feet beneath the waves," Luang says, gesturing one hand into another for effect and dropping them down, signifying them sinking. "He called his sword to hand and laid it across his opponent's impenetrable body and kicked away beneath the waves. The warrior pushed and strained but could not lift the enchanted weapon forged for the hand of the Khan, drowning a yard from the surface as the Khan climbed to join his forces."

"We had managed to keep our foothold and reinforce, and a distance grew between our forces," Kris says, slowly widening his hands to add to the effect. "Nearly a hundred yards separated us, and both we and the enemy were reinforcing, their elite that had been guarding their queen now dispatched to the front to breach our hasty defenses."

"We had the momentum and his wife and mate, Tasha, as well as the other leaders, urged him to order the advance, but he refused, citing patience for the conditions to be set," Luang says, shaking his head slightly.

"More forces were coming we didn't know about, and as the enemy's elite, which they called Myrmidons, arrived at the enemy lines, so did our surprise for the battle," Kris says with a grin from his seat.

"A Platoon of Rangers from Ghost Battalion arrived on Ptactors with powerful magic users allied with the Horde in Houston, landing on the roofs along the enemy's positions and key locations," Maddie says with a flourish on her instrument.

"The battle tipped immediately as death and destruction fell upon the enemy from the rooftops and the Horde and Vikings pushed into the city past the French Quarter and into the city proper," Luang says with a predatory smile.

"We had pushed to the city center, an open courtyard where the witch queen who ruled the city had summoned a Greek god to aid her, sacrificing over a dozen human slaves and her remaining champion to summon him for a brief period to allow her to win the battle," Maddie says, frowning hard.

"The Khan was taken by surprise in the summoning and was pinioned upon Poseidon's trident, suspended over the foaming water streaming down the steps of the temple," Luang says, frowning hard now and shaking his head sadly. "Most men would snarl or beg, but the Khan did neither, instead he mocked the god and laughed at him, taunting him into anger and distraction."

"I saw my father in danger and I ran to his aide, moving to the side to remain unseen by the _god_ ," she says, sneering the title like a dirty word.

"And the masked archer from earlier bypassed other clusters of battle and moved directly to the Khan to help as well," Kris says with a nod of his own.

"The archer and I fought and killed Poseidon, but not before he released the chaos of the storm into my father while pinning him to the ground with his weapon," Maddie says with anger and another flash of her eyes, playing a sharp angry tone as she does.

"Again, a humble summary," Luang says with a smirk. "She attacked with a flaming gladius while the archer fired explosive arrowheads into the marble fleshed deity. She impaled him in the gut with her sword through a gap in his armor then filleted open his arm as he tried to choke her to death. The archer finished him off with an arrow through the eye socket."

"I'd broken both legs and cracked some ribs, but crawled to my father's side and removed the trident that pinned him, his eyes glazed and unseeing as he looked at the sky, the power of a god stirring his soul into chaos," Maddie says with a frown, notes of dread soft from her guitar.

"A shapeshifter is in a constant battle to maintain control and keep the beast within us, that which gives us our power, under control," Luang says to the group. "If the restraint of our human minds are broken, a true monster could emerge, unable to tell right from wrong. A loup."

"But the Khan had faced such magic before, from a power as ancient as the pyramids, and won," Kris says, all heads turning to him. "This was child's play in comparison. Once the trident was removed he rose and shifted into his warrior form, roaring into the night and ready to finish the battle."

"We lost many good friends that day," Luang says sadly.

"Family, we lost family," Maddie corrects as she slowly strums the strings. "They spilled their blood beside us and fought back to back to protect us. They were our family, our brothers and sisters."

"But we won the day," Kris says with a smile and firm nod. "US Army and Navy came in and secured the city, and we went home. Mission accomplished."

"Who was the archer?" the Chief of Boat asks from the back of the crowd, standing over the seated crowd with a curious expression.

Luang looks at Maddie who stops playing and looks up to lock gazes with the Chief over the heads of all those listening, "His name is Anthony Hessberg, a Friend of the Horde, and he is my mate, whom we are traveling to retrieve from where he was taken to after he sacrificed himself to keep myself and my sister safe from a monster not long ago. I met him for the first time on the New Orleans mission."

The silence is so total that even the soft crashing of the waves against the ship seem to hush and quiet.

The man stands on the battlements of the castle looking to the east and the direction of the fleeing prey who had managed to kill one of his master's most powerful Lieutenants. He is still wearing traditional garb for the region with a tight turban on his head and he turns his head as the woman he had dispatched to track the trespasser.

"Report," the man states, hand resting on his sword's pommel.

"He is moving fast, for a human, and is driving himself to exhaustion," the woman says with a frown of her own. "He made it to the beasts' lands. I was unable to get past their patrols unseen and returned to report."

"Very well," the man says with a short nod and turns away from the woman. "I have contacted the mercenaries to bring him to the master."

"They are coming from the north, but have far to travel, even if he maintains this pace," the woman says, an observation of facts rather than a criticism.

"They are Ghorkali, they will not fail," the man says with confidence, his mind still dwelling on the human's ability to destroy the Lich.

Maddie sits cross legged on the bow of the ship in the twilight, long after the others have called it a night, having notified the sentries so they didn't mistake her for someone or something else. She kicks her legs off the edge of the turret, useless with the magic up, a wooden and metal scorpion ballista forward if needed. She had been restless, her gut telling her that Tony is in trouble, but unable to say why or how. She glances at the mirror sitting next to her, a round cosmetics mirror less than six inches across on a cheap metal stand that folds up. The mirror has symbols etched around the edges, carved there by Aunt A to connect to another mirror if Tony manages to create one of his own.

She raises her head to the sky and without thought she howls mournfully at the crescent moon, her voice low and sorrowful and giving goosebumps to the crew of the ship.

Richard is sitting in a private conference room on the second floor of Luchetti's wearing an expensive light wool suit and vest beneath it, Krigsherre sheathed on his hip, no tie on, but the top two buttons of his shirt open. He is here with Noel and Thomas Domasca, a security team outside and in the surrounding area, though Richard honestly thinks at this point it is unnecessary. The door opens and he rises to his feet as two of his guards escort in the Emissary from Roland in between them, both guards in ceremonial yet functional samurai armor on their warrior forms, one a werewolf, the other a were-tiger. The Emissary's appearance causes Richard to narrow his eyes in thought as they approach, not what he had expected.

The woman is wearing an elegant cocktail dress that probably cost well over ten thousand dollars, the small red gems in the lacy fabric outlining the design of a canine curled around her midsection. The deep red matches the woman's hair, and Richard is pretty certain the woman is Russian in descent based on her green eyes and features, though her scent automatically categorizes her as a shapeshifter. Mentally Richard nods, seeing that Roland's chosen messenger is a shapeshifter, and he would guess she either was with the Iron Dogs or at the least trained with them. Her movements and walk tell him she is highly trained in some form of martial art, if not multiple forms, and he reconsiders the choice of his guards, though he is confident in his own abilities.

The woman halts a dozen yards away and bows deeply to him, causing him to instinctively stiffen at the action, it feeling not so much as part of a ceremony but as though she were addressing nobility of some type. Richard is standing at the table at one end of the room, another set across from him, though with only one chair compared to the three arrayed with him to seat himself and the other two Alphas, Noel and Domasca.

"I'm not usually one for ceremony," Richard says, gesturing to the table and the seat, to which the woman glances up from her downward gaze but remains standing in the open area instead.

"I will remain standing, if it is permitted," she says with a polite nod, a twist of her head and a bare glance at Richard's eyes, and he fights back a snarl at coy games.

"What is your message?" Richard asks, wanting to get this over with so he can start to plan against whatever Roland is up to this time.

"It is nothing so simple, Khan," the woman says, still looking down, her tone soothing, which only causes Richard to grit his teeth in annoyance. "The Tower Builder is aware of what happened to your son, and sends his condolences, as well as information."

She slowly pulls a piece of paper from her pocket and Richard tenses, prepared to throw the sleeve dagger tucked at his wrist into the woman's throat if need be.

She opens the letter and looks at it, reading it aloud, "The country formally known as Nepal, which was a known ally of Europeans and of the United States of America in specific, was overthrown and reduced to servile status to the powers that be in the greater Hindu area."

Richard's eyes narrow, "Why should I trust you?"

"You may not," she says, holding the letter to the side. "This contains a possible source to which the US Government is unaware of, you can verify the information using contacts in the US Government."

"Why are you telling us this?" Thomas asks, his own wolf like gaze locked on the woman.

"The master wishes to reach a compromise with the Horde," she says with a grand gesture. "He recognizes the strength that has been nurtured here despite the opposition and lack of opportunity. He believes that if possible, it should not be wasted."

"So he is magnanimously allowing us an opportunity to join him, or die?" Richard asks with a raised eyebrow and a tight smile.

"Nothing so simple or contemporary," she says with a small shake of her head. "Deals have already been struck within your very family, and his magic already touches your being and influences you, even now," she says gesturing to him, indicating his black scaled hand. "You have not shared his blood as many of his most loyal and trusted instruments, but you are marked nonetheless. Acceptance is an eventuality."

" _I_ will be the judge of that," he says with a hard tone to which she ducks her head a bit deeper.

"You are aware of the options available, and yet you allowed me to come and speak my words, knowing what they would be," she says with a knowing glance at him before looking away again.

Richard frowns, the woman playing this game far too well and amping up the tension of Noel and Thomas, neither of whom know all the details and are easier to rattle.

"I am a big believer of setting conditions and doing things on my terms," he says with a twist of his head. "He witnessed my battle with Tiamat, he knows my answer. I will not wear a collar, no matter how gilded or loose."

"Your people already wear one," she says with a gesture to the door and the other shapeshifters in the area. "But I shall not get tangled up in semantics, instead I have a proposal for you. In other areas in which you hold sway, Dallas in particular, the People remain and conduct their studies and activities. We would like to negotiate for the return of a presence by the Masters of the Dead within the Houston city limits."

"We've been doing alright since they tried to kill the entire Horde, my children, my friends and me specifically, after which I wiped the entire compound clean," Richard says in a hard tone that barely contains his rage.

"True, but recent events have changed the dynamic of your territory, as well as our own," she says with a nod of her head. "We are aware of the creature that stole your son from you who was partnered with the former Sergeant Major. Had the People still retained a foothold in the city, they could have been consulted and aided with both Law Enforcement and your own forces as well."

"We could never count on them to do anything but look to their own interests before," Thomas says with anger in his tone and posture, standing a bit behind and to Richard's left. "There is no guarantee that they would abide any written contract between our people were we to allow them back."

"If you enter into a negotiated agreement with my lord and master, he will ensure that all agreements will be honored and violators in even the smallest manner will be harshly punished," she says, emphasis on the punishment to include a yellow flash of her eyes.

"Somehow that doesn't fill me with warm confidence," Noel says from Richard's right, his deep voice a landslide of sound.

"We will discuss it and meet again," Richard says before anyone can say more. "This is a complex arrangement that you propose, and I cannot rush it, or else I may lose support with the local Law Enforcement, and should the People return they will suffer for the loss."

The woman tilts her head in acknowledgment, "I am staying in the Hilton in town, I am certain you know where. I shall await a message for our next meeting in the next couple of days, Khan."

"Until then," Richard says with a nod of his head and the woman bows low then leaves the room under guard.

Tony blinks sleep from his eyes in the darkness as he eases his grip from the throat of whoever had tried to wake him, a dagger pricking their jaw. He relaxes and eases the edge away from Bagira's skin, her eyes studying him as she moves away from him in the gloom of the night. He sheathes the dragon bone dagger that was Maddie's and he had retrieved from the first dead body of the Lich.

"How long was I out?" he asks after activating the medallion on his neck, sheathing the knife and gently rubbing his eyes through the mask.

"Five hours," she says quietly, glancing up at the overcast sky. "I can continue to watch if you want a few more hours sleep, sir."

"No," Tony says with a shake of his head as he stands and stretches. "I normally don't sleep at all unless I severely exert myself. Five hours is actually a record without a complete drain from a spell."

"Very well, sir," Bagira says with a duck of her head and Tony hides a scowl beneath his mask.

"Take some rest yourself," he says, taking a seat on a nearby log with his bow across his legs. "I'll keep watch, and when you're rested, we'll move again."

"Very well, sir," Bagira says, lying down on the mat Tony had been resting on.

Tony sits on the log and breaths deeply and evenly, his focus on nothing and everything at once, the night singing to him with the sounds of insects and small animals. He can hear birds in the trees and a pair of snakes in the vicinity, one a long constrictor and the other a small viper he thinks, though he would have to see the head to be sure. When at the castle he had searched for a smaller mirror to use to communicate back home but found none, and shattered glass does not work, from what Aunt A said, though he has no idea why. The lack of communication back home is a nagging thought in the back of his head and he is certain that if he is annoyed by it then Maddie is probably going crazy without knowing his status.

He has been listening for four hours when the flow of the forest around him changes, nothing too overt, but something distinct all the same. He rises cautiously to his feet and moves to Bagira, lightly putting the toes of his foot on her calf, waking her instantly, though she remains still. He says nothing, his bow ready as he stretches his awareness and looks for the thing that is causing the change, though he is unsure what it is. After a pair of breaths he can sense it, an absence rather than a presence of something, there is a blank spot in his senses, a void. Just as that registers, so does its location and he spins in place while drawing an arrow to fire, but too late.

The trio of men have exited from the brush a half dozen yards away, and Tony fires the mundane arrow at the hand axe flying towards his chest while ducking back. The blade is deflected but a man in leather armor with strips of metal in it is directly behind it with a heavy Kurki in hand that bursts into flame and nearly causes him to flinch. His perceptions are dialed down now, though, and he blocks the chop from the short blade with the bow, but the man's technique and strength, despite being shorter than Tony at a wiry five foot six inches, knocks his bow from his hands. He still cannot detect the man's breath nor his heartbeat, and he gives off no scents at all, something is blocking the man from his senses. He draws his katana and slices at the man, who parries the attack and backhands the blunt side of the flaming blade into Tony's ribs.

Tony huffs at the impact and tries to turn with it and cut at the man, but the man has trapped his hands against his own and twisted, tossing Tony over his hip and onto his back, the air knocked from his lungs hard. Tony raises his katana across his chest and face with his left hand bracing the back of the top end of the blade as the black haired man chops down hard. The flaming Kurki strikes the katana blade with the sound of a sharp gong going off and bounces back as the longer blade shatters into a hundred pieces. Tony does not have time to reflect on the loss of his blade, but shoves the remaining two inches of ragged metal above the handle into the man's right calf while rolling to the side.

The Gurkha stumbles after Tony who has rolled back onto his shoulders with tucked legs then thrusts out with both feet, connecting with the other man's sternum. The blow lifts the charging enemy a pair of yards off the ground and cracks the sternum hard while knocking the air from his lungs. He lands gasping, unable to draw air through the shattered ribs and collapsed lungs.

Tony does not hesitate but lunges forward and rips the man's weapon from his hand then chops across backhanded on the Gurkha's neck, severing it clean with one swipe of the flaming blade. He looks up from his defeated opponent to see Bagira trying to fend off both the remaining attackers, the two obviously expert at fighting in tandem. Tony drops his opponent's blade on his dead chest and pulls a pair of daggers from his belt, throwing them in quick succession. Distracted, both men go down with a six inch blade buried in the exposed flesh of their necks.

Bagira is on the wounded enemy in a flash in warrior form, finishing off the nearly crippled foes quickly and savagely. Tony takes a few deep breaths and looks at the handle lying nearby, the sword he has carried as his primary melee weapon since his father had gifted it to him shortly after finding him. He clenches his jaw and takes a breath as the adrenaline starts to fade from his system, fighting against the shakes that threaten to grip him. Instead he kneels next to the man he had killed and pulls the wide scabbard from the man's hip and affixes it to his own right thigh, putting his new Kurki there to replace the shattered katana.

Maddie looks at the approaching islands of Hawaii from the bow of the ship with a suspicious expression, anything that presents itself as anything but an aide to get her to her mate seen with dark eyes. The resupply is necessary for the ship to make the best time to Asia, but the island has been separated from the mainland since the Shift and has been its own nation for over twenty years. She looks over at where Luang is leading Trixie from below decks onto the back pad and she walks over to her mount. She rubs the dragon behind the jaw where she likes it, her wing twitching in pleasure as she does it and a Ptactor is led up with Kris behind Luang.

"Remember, recon and meet at the Embassy, that is all," Lu says to Maddie, who is in charge of the small patrol.

"I won't say relax, because you won't, but don't worry so much, we got this," Maddie says with a frown at him.

"I won't say 'what could go wrong'," Kris says from where he checks the straps of his own mount. "But c'mon, she was an honor grad and I'm the gun specialist on the team, and the tech just came up. It's a beer run," he says with a shrug, then a thoughtful frown. "Well, a whiskey run if you want to get technical, cuz that's what I'm looking for."

"US Navy ships are dry," Luang says with a firm expression at the older but lower ranking man, Kris having been in the Army before moving to Houston and opening his business, in his mid-thirties.

"Something I wish folks had told me before we left so I would not have had to suffer on the first leg of our trip," Kris says with a frown. "Relax, I'm picking up something for the COB, so there's no trouble," he says, referring to the nickname for the Chief of Boat.

"Just try to stay out of trouble," Luang asks with an internal sigh of resignation.

"No promises," Maddie says as she hops in the saddle and straps herself in, Kris doing the same.

She is secure in a few moments then launches Trixie into flight, the wyvern beating the air into submission as it moves forward then builds altitude, the smaller and weaker Ptactor behind her using her trailing air streams to make her own flight easier. When they are about two thousand feet up Maddie turns Trixie towards the large islands arrayed a pair of miles from the ship. They had called the Embassy ahead of time by radio, since the tech is up, and they have prepped a landing area and informed the local government so there would be no issues or scares with the neighbors. It is with this in mind that she approaches the large city on the island, which she failed to pronounce properly and has given up on, to find the large reflective panels below on the Embassy lawn.

She drops down sharply from five hundred feet up, having glided lower as they approached and the wyvern flares with beats of its wings and a happy squawk as it lands. Maddie smirks as Trixie preens happily while Kris lands next to her in his own flare, less dramatic but no less impressive for a flier of that size. She unstraps and dismounts, ordering Trixie to stay as the wyvern settles down on its haunches and pulls its wings in close like an eagle on a nest, the Ptactor doing likewise at Kris' command.

She pulls off the leather helmet and face mask as well as the goggles they wear while flying, protecting them from the wind and making it easier to see and breath. She takes a moment at Trixie's side, shielded from view of the small gathered crowd waiting for them on the other side of the landing area, running her fingers through her hair and tying it into a ponytail instead of the wild mane the wind had made of it. Kris smirks at her from a yard away, running his hand over his half inch long hair and tossing his head theatrically, as if tossing long hair.

"Shut up," she growls at him as she finishes twisting the elastic scrunchie in place.

"You could have kept it short, just saying," he says with humor while tucking his head coverings into the saddle on his Ptactor.

"I like longer hair," she says with a frown at him, pausing before pulling her lever action rifle from the saddle, leaving it instead.

"I'd bet Tony does, too," Kris says with a smirk, which earns him a glare from her which he ignores. "Chill, Mad. You guys killed a god together the day you met, not to mention the shit he's been through without you around. I was there for the demon, remember."

She makes a disgruntled frown, "I know."

"He'll get a mirror and call when he can, until then, we close the gap," Kris says with a shrug. "Keep rowing, as some of our instructors were fond of saying."

"So let's go row," Maddie says as she walks around Trixie to where there are six uniformed US Marines with weapons at the ready guarding a pair of men in expensive suits and a woman in a power suit of her own.

Richard is sitting on the roof of his barn cross legged with his hands closed loosely and his eyes closed as he breathes easily in the early night time, Noel standing by the edge of the platform with a scowl on his face. The were-bear and Alpha of Clan Heavy, Richard's Alpha when he first joined the Pack those years ago, had arrived a few minutes ago after they had returned from the meeting at Luchetti's. He had said nothing and neither had Richard, who had not moved or acknowledged his presence, but now the younger man sighs in slight annoyance.

"Just say it, Noel, even though we both know what you and the other Alphas have talked and dissected and decided," Richard says, opening his eyes and turning his head to the older man, the hand length black hear speckled with white over his grizzled face.

"We are uncomfortable with you deciding to accept such a responsibility," he says in his characteristic deep growl of a voice, both his eyes turning to meet Richard's for a moment then averting in an act of submission. One eye has scar tissue around it, the organ recently completed healing and regenerating from a wound sustained months ago.

"I can take on this mantle of my choosing, or the mantle Roland has envisioned for me, or we die trying to fight him head on," Richard says with a tight frown as he rises to his feet in a pair of Horde sweatpants and t-shirt. "Those are my choices."

"I still think we can take him, you destroyed the People in town easily enough," Noel says unhappily with a shake of his head as he looks out at the Bastion.

"We lost people when they attacked our fortifications, and though we didn't lose anyone in the counterattack on the Casino, there were innocents inside that didn't make it," Richard reminds him with a chiding tone. "We lost adults and a few children in that war, and if you think that's the worst he can throw at us, think again. For some reason he considers us a novelty that should be spared, for now. We're going to milk that until it's too late, then the playing field will look far different, and we will have a real chance."

"I'm worried about retribution, not just from him, but the others in town," Noel says with an unsure shake of his head. "The other factions will absolutely not like this, and we won't be able to hide it forever."

Richard shrugs in return with a frown of his own, "I admit, it's not a great plan. Throwing yourself off of a cliff is usually a bad idea, but sometimes, the bad idea is better than the worse idea."

Noel turns and looks at Richard from under bushy brows, "When is throwing yourself off a cliff a good idea?"

"In Afghanistan there was a SEAL team on a mission, back before the Shift, and were in a running gun fight on the back side of a mountain, they could either stay in place and die, maybe take a couple with them, or jump off a cliff and out of the enemy's range. They jumped," he says with a nod.

Noel ponders this for a moment, "How did that work out for them?"

"They were battered, broken and bruised, and were unable to get away before the enemy closed in again and they had to jump off another cliff," Richard says, turning and looking Noel in the eye. "In the end, only one of them survived. Mark Luttrell, good man."

Noel blinks and shakes his head at the revelation, "I hope I never have to throw myself off a cliff as the better option."

"I had to do it when I was in South America, when I was being hunted," Richard says, gesturing to the south and referring to when he had been kidnapped some years ago while still in Clan Heavy. "Jumped off a cliff twice to escape an ambush and into a river. An unpleasant experience, but far better than dying."

The small clearing in which Tony and Bagira had killed the three men following them now has a half dozen men of similar looks and equipment. Most are looking outward, but one is crouched over the beheaded body of the leader of the small group that had attempted to take the archer and the shapeshifter. He is of interminable age, likely in his late forties but with no age lines or laugh wrinkles by he his eyes, though there are a few fine scar lines along his brow and cheeks from past battles. The man rises slowly and his eyes study every scuff and piece of disturbed earth, reading what is disturbed on the site to determine what happened.

He has walked the entire clearing and calls his second to his side, a younger man in his mid-twenties, also with dark skin, olive eyes and black hair.

"The beast fended off two, but the archer bested him," the older man says, gesturing at the beheaded fighter. "His sword was shattered in the fight, but still he won, without his bow. This man is no mere archer."

He is silent for a moment, crouching down again and moving the dead man's clothing to reveal that the sheath for his kurki is missing. The man rises to his feet with an angry snarl on his face.

"He took my son's kurki," the man says, his face filled with rage but his tone flat and emotionless. "Call ahead and tell the clan that this contract is now priority over everything else except defense of the houses, call everyone in. We are going to reclaim our honor."

Tony calls a halt to Bagira, his legs needing rest from the walking they had done in the day since their last rest, when they had been attacked. They are much closer to the mountains now, and the vegetation is starting to grow sparse, the terrain changing.

"I know those were Gurkhas," Tony says to Bagira as he chews on some rations and drinks water on a log while she keeps scanning the area. "But I thought they were not aligned with the Hindus."

"They were not until a year or so ago, when there was a power shift in Nepal, and now they will mercenary for anyone," she says, never taking her eyes off of their surroundings. "They would occasionally hunt us in our region if we were too daring in a raid or attack against the _thing_ or his master."

"They were very good," Tony says with a nod. "I just wish I could have figured out how they moved without any kind of signature. I haven't been snuck up on like that in… well, not since I got my powers, I guess."

Bagira glances at him with her dark eyes, framed by her dark skinned face and small mouth, "Why did you take his blade? It is an insult to him and his family."

"He tried to kill me, and broke the sword that was given to me by my father. The sword was a symbol that at one time symbolized his soul, and I had thought of it the same way, until now," Tony says with an unseen frown under his mask.

"If his family finds out, they will come for you," she says with more than a touch of trepidation. "And they are fierce in battle, they say that no one can defeat them when they declare war on you."

Tony snorts as he pulls the mask down to cover his face, finished eating, "Maybe they're true, maybe not, but they are not invincible, we did take three of them when they caught up to us. Now I know what to look for, and they won't get that close again."

"We are headed towards their land," Bagira says with a gesture of her hand towards the mountains ahead.

Tony follows her gesture and looks past the woman in the dark dress with him to the mountains, details of which he can pick out even at this distance due to his enhanced senses. He frowns in thought at that, wondering if there is another path home that does not involve crossing the mountains to China, but unable to see it. He reaches into a pouch and pulls out a small signal mirror that fits in his hand, which one of the men who attacked them had carried. He sighs and pulls out a small folding knife and a small pocket notebook while leaning against the log he had been sitting on.

"Keep watch, I'm going to be distracted for an hour or two working on a spell," Tony says as he starts to carefully and exactly etch runes onto the edges of the mirror, following a pattern he is using from his waterproofed notebook of spells.

Maddie is sitting in a secure room at the Embassy, drumming her fingers on the oak table that she is sitting at alone and unarmed, against her preference. The US has updated intel on the region she is going to and Rick had arranged her to get the briefing, the real reason behind her coming here at all. She almost feels naked without the gladius and the twin daggers that came with her vest, but she reminds herself that she can form claws on human hands and shift into warrior form in less than a second if needed. With these thoughts in mind the door opens and a trio of men wearing suits enter the conference room, causing her to stand in greeting.

"Ms. Michaels, I'm Agent Danvers with the CIA," the lead man says, a touch over six feet tall with dark blond hair and a muscled figure, looking like he earned most of it in the gym, though his stance and movements tell Maddie he is a fighter by training, if not experience.

"Nice to meet you," she says with a polite nod, but not mentioning the others who did not introduce themselves but only set out a few stacks of papers for her and Danvers then stand to the side, guarding.

"I'm here to brief you on the updated intelligence that has recently come to our attention," he says, gesturing to the chair for her to sit in, a stack of briefing papers in front of it.

"And them?" she asks, glancing at the two men in suits at the door, both of which she can tell are armed.

He glances back at them, then to her, "We are well aware of your capabilities, Ms. Michaels, which is why we separated you from your fellow 'Agogite' and ensured you were unarmed."

"You sure know how to flatter a girl," Maddie says with a dry smirk at the older man who looks to be in his thirties.

"I'm the CIA station head here and have been for five years," he says with a shake of his head. "I didn't get that by being careless and not doing my homework."

"Fair enough," she says, turning to the papers. "So what's changed?"

"Nepal," Danvers says briskly, flipping the page and Maddie doing likewise, now looking at a map of northern India and part of Asia. "They were independent and friendly, now they are not. They sell their services to the Hindu, which rule northern India, with other, smaller kingdoms in the southern portion of the sub-continent. They are allowing the Hindu to consolidate Dehli and expand their power base."

"Wait, weren't they mercenaries before?" she asks, tilting her head as she remembers the kurki that Rick used to carry and his talks about its origin.

"They were, but they were equal opportunity, they hired on to mostly who we would call Democracies or Republics," he says, indicating a page further in and she follows him to find a network diagram indicating leading individuals in Burma. "But there was a power shift and now they're loyal to Dehli, who they now contract with exclusively."

"They're good fighters, aren't they?" she asks, fighting to keep worry from her voice.

Danvers frowns, flipping to one of the last pages, and she does as well, finding a picture of a Gurkha warrior with rifle slung, bow in hand, kurki on his hip with other blades as well.

"They are the best in the world, comparable with US Special Forces or Ghost Battalion," he says with a shake of his head. "And the new shift in their political dynamic puts them in opposition to China, so if your plan was to get to your man that way, you'll have to re-look it, that's no longer a viable option."

Maddie scowls at the stack of papers then back at Danvers.

"Can I keep the papers?" she asks, noting the SECRET stamped in red on the top.

He slides over a folder, "That grants you courier clearance for seventy two hours, allowing you to go back to the ship to the secure room, and then you and your people can work it out from there."

"Thank you, Agent Danvers," Maddie says as she stands with the two folders, her mind already far afield on the problems ahead.

Tony blows the last of the etching dust from the surface of the small mirror and carefully inspects the symbols he had etched, checking his notebook. It all looks right and he tucks the mirror away, the tech ruling the world and even though he could, with great effort, power the spell, his aunt back in Houston cannot. He will wait until the next magic wave and call home, hopefully his dad will have a plan for him to get home, rather than just wandering the countryside.

"Ready?" Tony asks Bagira, who nods and they resume their journey towards the closing mountains and the homes of the ones tasked with bringing them in.

Maddie is standing in the secure room of the ship with Luang going over the intel from the CIA and trying to figure out how to revise their plans when Ming enters carrying the mirror from her room. Maddie tenses up immediately and moves around the table between her and the door at nearly a run as the other woman hands her the mirror. She pulls the reflective surface to face her and chokes down a gasp to see Tony's uncovered face looking back at her.

"Hey, beautiful," he says with a smile, his single grey eye looking at her own dark brown eyes.

"I love you," she says immediately, the rest of the room forgotten as she focuses on her distant mate.

"I love you, too," he says with a smile, speaking slowly and meaning every word. "Ming tells me y'all are on your way to come pick me up, is that right?"

"We're off the coast of Hawaii now, and just picked up some intel on the region you're in now," she says, moving to the table to go over the information, shaking her head and focusing on the immediate problems.

"I'm in northern India, closing in on the mountains," he says, looking away from the mirror to look at what must be the direction of the mountains. "The plan I made up has me trying to cross over into China, then work my way to the coast. I was hoping the Xiangs still had some influence, and Ming mentioned something along those lines."

"The Gurkhas are no longer allies," Luang says from where he is now next to Maddie, the mirror set on the table to allow everyone to see Tony and him to see the three and the ship's Intelligence officer, a Lieutenant Senior Grade. "You must stay away from Nepal and the mountains, they will not welcome you."

Tony snorts at that, "Killed three of them yesterday, so I got that. I'm guessing more will come. I'm betting I can get over the mountain before they catch me."

"They own the mountain, Tony," Maddie says with worry in her voice that she cannot keep out. "And you remember Rick said these guys are the best soldiers in the world, warriors without equal. Anyone that Rick says is a badass _**is**_ a serious badass."

"They weren't bad, don't get me wrong," Tony says with an uncharacteristic shrug and smirk. "But it's either go over the mountains or trek through the heart of India and try sailing from there, and I'm not a sailor, no matter how much the Vikings tried squeezing it in my head."

"If that's what you think is best on the ground, Anthony, then so be it," Luang says with a bit of a frown. "How are you for supplies and equipment? You will need ropes and other climbing gear for the ascent."

"Got some leather armor before I left the castle and mundane arrows, so I'm good there, as well as some MREs to supplement what I can hunt and gather while moving. There's a village up ahead still in Hindi country I'm going to barter or steal from for the rest," he says with a twist of his head. "Biggest bummer was when one of the Gurkhas broke my sword with his kurki," he says with a scowl. "I loved that sword."

Maddie's face tightens, knowing that Rick had given him that sword and he had kept it at arm's length since the day he received it, the weapon an extension of his body, his soul…

"Are you okay?" she asks him, her tone deeper than a mere question.

He frowns and twists his head with a half shrug, "What's done is done. I'm alive, and plan to stay that way."

"We should make Japan in the next week or so, depending how the weather behaves," Maddie says glancing at the Intel officer, who nods agreement. "Then China the day after, at which point we'll have to deal with their court and work out travel and trade to get you to us."

"Sounds good," Tony says with a nod of his own in the mirror, sparse vegetation behind him as he speaks. "But I'm not sitting still. There's folks around that don't like intruders, and a three day grace anywhere is all I'll get, if that. So I'll keep heading to Beijing until something better gets worked out."

"Be careful," Maddie says with a solemn look at him through the small mirror.

"I make no promises, but I have a huge incentive on not dying," he says with his gaze boring into hers. "I love you, and I'll call again in the next wave if I can, but we'll hit the foot of the mountain in the next day or so."

"I love you, too," Maddie says in a slightly strangled tone just before the mirror flares out and she takes a labored breath to find her center, glad beyond measure that he is okay for the moment.

Tony glances up from the mirror as he tucks it away, looking at Bagira standing watch on a boulder, more of them now that there is a noticeable incline towards the mountain range looming above them.

"You can still turn back," Tony says to her once the medallion is activated.

"You know that I cannot, sir," she says in her usual formal tone. "You kept the Gurkhas from killing me, I am indebted further."

Tony sighs, "At this rate I'm never going to get rid of you, so I think maybe we'll start training at some point… even though the thought of me being a sensei kind of boggles."

He mutters the last of it, mostly to himself, but Bagira hears him and smirks at his admonishment, though says nothing as he stands up and they move closer to the looming peaks ahead of them.

Richard frowns as he looks at the now inactive mirror in his living room, having just received a report from Luang on Tony's call. He is not happy with the development of both the Gurkhas now working for the Hindu or the fact that Tony plans to go over the mountain regardless. The Gurkhas are the world's best mountain fighters, hell the best fighters period, in the world, with only a handful from outside their culture earning their respect. His kurki that he carried was a gift from a unit when he had proven himself worthy to carry it, and he is pretty sure the Sergeant Major that tried to kill him recently did the same to have one as well. When Jocelyn had taken off to help Tony find Maddie and took his kurki for a weapon she had gotten chewed out from him nearly as badly for that as Autumn had yelled at her for sneaking off and putting herself in danger.

He is not so worried about Maddie, though he is surprised to learn that she has told everyone that until she returns with Tony she is Madelyn Michaels, not Summers. He quirks a half smile for a moment, proud of his adopted daughter and how far she has come in the short time she has been with him. He almost immediately sighs as he returns to the thought of his natural born son trying to climb the Himalayas while Gurkhas have a contract out on his head. He shakes his head and rubs his scalp for a moment as he comes to a decision and heads outside the cabin and heads to the barn to get a mount, he needs to speak with Odin.

Tony pauses as they leave the heavy vegetation of the jungle and peers up the steep side of the mountain, fighting not to gulp as the sheer size of the peaks leave him feeling humbled.

"My people have never been this far north," Bagira says from his side, glancing up at the peaks then down and scanning the area, moving nervously under the looming presence of the mountain. "We fear those who rule here, as they are hunters without equal."

Tony smiles tightly under his mask and recites the quote his father is fond of, " 'There is no hunting, like the hunting of a man. And those who have hunted armed men long enough, and liked it, never really care for anything else, thereafter.' "

"Did your father tell you that?" Bagira asks with a glance at him, barely literate in any language.

"He helped teach me it, but no," he says with a deep frown as they start up the slope. "A pair of men I trained with taught it to me, after my father had taken them under his wing and trained them. And I've been trying to decide if I agree with it, if I am that kind of man."

"Your father is a great warrior, where you come from, then?" Bagira asks, not much conversation having passed between the two as they have travelled.

Tony snorts, "Some would say greatest in the world, or one of the top ten. To quote my aunt, 'it's hard living in his shadow', and she's right."

Bagira has tilted her head and thought as they walk, then asks, "Your father, he is a greater warrior than you?"

Tony smirks unseen under his mask, "Shit, I'd say my girlfriend is better than me, but then again we've saved each other's lives a couple times now, so I'd say we're equitable, and she would probably agree or tell me I'm better. Dad, he's like a force of nature, if he decides you need to die. You will die."

"He is the king in your land?" Bagira asks, curious though her attention is not taken from their surroundings.

"He's… in charge of all the shapeshifters in our region, which is one of the largest in our country," he says tilting his head as he tries to explain it.

"He is a shapeshifter?" Bagira asks, surprised.

"He is a were-tiger, but of the old variety with huge teeth and a bob tail, a sabertooth," Tony says with a nod, remembering the few times he has seen his father in animal or warrior form and always awe struck that a man under six feet tall could turn into that.

Bagira pauses in mid step, "I have never heard of such a thing."

"Neither had anyone back home," Tony says, pausing and looking around with outstretched senses, frowning because if the Gurkhas are using the magic he had sensed on the others he would not be able to detect an ambush, only their movement due to the reaction of the wildlife around them.

"We need to focus on our surroundings more," Tony says with a frown. "Less talk until tech returns and we're stationary. Though thinking on it, we're going to have to adjust our movement schedule to move during tech and stay stationary during the magic waves, that way I can ward us and we won't step into an ambush."

"We should stop now, then," Bagira says, glancing at a nearby flat area by a pile of boulders. "They own the land we are on now, and undoubtedly have someone nearby or watching."

"Then we halt and rest," Tony says, glancing at the clearing, scrub brush around it and sparse, short trees. "I think that food is going to be harder to come by as we ascend. I'll shoot any game along the way, we'll have to use the rations and MREs once we get to the higher altitudes."

"I have a higher body temperature and if need be can travel in animal form for warmth, do you have sufficient clothing for the ascent?" she asks him, a worried tone in her voice.

"I've got a few cloaks wrapped up, and I can enchant some heaters to keep me warm if I need to," he says with a frown. "It will be more exhausting when tech is down, but I can do it. You'll just have to pull watches more during magic waves when we make camp."

"It is summer, so it is not as bad as during the winter time," Bagira observes.

"But when magic reigns, it doesn't care," Tony points out as they move towards the clearing. "It could be eighty out and snow could remain."

Bagira mulls over that as they make up a small camp and Tony sets some wards in place to protect them for the rest of the magic wave.

Maddie looks up from her small desk in the quarters she shares with Ming to the mirror linked to Tony's in India, surprised and pleased to see the runes on the edges flare with blue light, then the surface ripple with color as Tony's face comes into focus. She is up in a flash and Ming moves to the side to give her space as she picks up the mirror and cradles it in her hands with a smile.

"Tony! Are you okay?" she says, concern deep on her question as she starts to frown.

"I'm fine, just stopped during the magic wave while we're on the mountain," he says with a reassuring gesture of his hand that he brings into view of the mirror. "Plan on moving during the tech and camp with wards during magic waves. The Gurkhas have a magic charm that makes them invisible by sound and scent."

Maddie nods her agreement to his decision, "You'd walk into an ambush, for sure. Is the ward strong enough?"

"I'm not doing a blood ward, but I layered two wards together, took twenty minutes, but will hold against anyone weaker than Aunt A or dad, I think," he says with a toss of his head. "I think so, anyway."

"I miss you," Maddie says with a longing expression, reaching out to touch the mirror's surface.

"I miss you, too, darlin'," he says and she ducks her head with a slight blush, loving the way his accent comes out when he says that.

Maddie takes a breath and picks up a notepad from nearby and pulls out a pen, "Rick said that if we get a chance to talk regularly, that you should really submit reports on what happened since your last report, so if we lose contact again, we can try to find you."

Tony frowns but nods, "I hate reports, but that makes sense."

"So, tell me about what's happened since you teleported out?" she asks, pen poised to write.

"Wait, back up," Maddie says with narrowed eyes at her mate through the mirror between them, thirty minutes into writing down the report he is giving her.

"To what?" he asks, suddenly nervous as the sense that his girlfriend is angry sinks deep into his spine.

"To you picking up a local female bodyguard," she says with an accusing tone. "You neglected to mention that before. Glaringly."

Tony has his hands in front of him gesturing calmingly to her through the mirror, "I tried to get her to turn back but she refuses. Says she owes me a life debt, more so since I helped her survive the Gurkha attack."

"So you've been wandering around in the forest with a strange, exotic lady and it just slipped your mind to mention it when you called before?" Maddie says with a raised eyebrow, nearly snarling at him.

"Okay, I get it, I messed up and owe you chocolate, and probably a foot rub," he says in a pleading tone that he tries to keep down, glancing at where she guesses the woman in question is.

"Put her on," Maddie says with a firm tone at him. "If she's watching your back, then I need to know if you can really trust her."

"No," Tony says, surprising her with his own firm expression. "When you are calmer and have a chance to think it over, fine, but you are too angry right now to interview her."

"You are not adding to my calm," she tries not to growl out, but fails.

Tony frowns and tilts his head at her with a raised eyebrow of his own which reminds her just a touch of Rick when he is being stubborn about something and forces herself to back down.

"Fine, Ming will talk with her," she says, glancing at where the were-fox is lounging on the nearby bunk and looking up from her book. "She is impartial, and sage with elder wisdom," she says with raised brows questioning her choice.

"Fine," Tony says with a nod, though he still looks uncomfortable as she gives him a short glare and Ming takes her seat in front of the mirror.

"Sorry about the interrogation," Tony says to Bagira later that day as the magic prepares to drop, a half hour or so away.

"It is alright, they are your pack, and they are protective of their own," she says with a slight smile. "The young one, with the brown hair, that is your mate?" she asks with a tilted head.

"Yeah, Maddie," Tony says with an unseen smile under his mask. "We haven't been together all that long, really, but just before I left she developed the mating bond, so she's stuck with me."

"You do not sound disappointed, yourself," she says with a small smile of her own.

"I think I traded up when we started dating and couldn't figure out why she was with me at the time," he admits as he pulls up his mask to eat something before they leave.

"And now?" Bagira asks with a tilted head, wondering what he will say.

"I killed your bad Alpha after throwing off a LycV infection and an ownership curse, I've killed a Naga and a Gurkha, and that's just since I got here," he says with a shrug and a smirk. "I'm learning just how good I really am, even if I'm not perfect and need help sometimes."

"You have helped me and my people far more, sir," she says with a nod of respect to him.

Tony frowns at her, "I'm not in the military and I'm sure you're actually older than me. Calling me 'sir' seems silly."

"Your accomplishments that I have witnessed alone have earned you a far better title, but you refuse to allow me to use it," she says with an uncomfortable shift of her shoulders.

"I'm not taking a title," Tony says firmly. "Be glad I'm letting you call me 'sir'," he says with a frown, fighting his anger.

Bagira says nothing, letting the subject die as they go about camp chores.

Tony frowns as he looks at the large boulders that are on the trail they had been using to serpentine up the lower slope of the mountain. He is no expert, but he strongly doubts that this has been here long, and he looks intently at the way the rocks lay, then further back the way they came to another small avalanche that did not impede them. The other one has a settled look to it, the rock edges are softer, weathered by time, whereas this pile is sharper, fresher.

"So, they're steering us," he says absently, looking around with a frown, unable to immediately detect any sign of the Gurkhas having been here.

So, they came here during the magic wave using their cloaking charm to keep them from leaving a signature and dropped the rocks. They are trying to guide him along a path of their choosing that is likely booby trapped or has an ambush in place, though they may simply be barring their progress. He takes a breath and studies the area and asks himself two questions; 1. What would Aunt A do? 2. What would dad do?

Aunt A would analyze the situation so she knew exactly what was going on and how, then develop a countermeasure to act against it. Well, he has better senses than a shapeshifter and he has a pretty good idea of what is going on if not exactly how. Acting against that would require more manpower and would guarantee a confrontation on grounds of their enemy's choosing. All of which is generally what his enemy expects. So, what would dad do? He would do the unexpected, the impossible, and surprise everyone by making it work.

Tony turns from the rubble blocking his way to the east and turns ninety degrees to look to the steep ascent to his north instead.

"Bagira, break out the rope, I'm on point," he says as he pulls out the two dragon bone daggers designed to cut through anything and holds them blade down in his hands as he looks at the rock face speculatively.

The leader of the Gurkha tribe sits in irritated silence as he waits for the sentry further down the small valley to signal that their prey has begun his approach into the trap. The man had sharp senses to detect his son and his hunting party through the familial cloak they shared by blood to the warriors of the clan. To have defeated his son in solo combat means the man must be fast and skilled, or lucky beyond measure. He has taken luck out of the equation, as the man travels by tech now, allowing him to use technological weapons to kill him.

He has a staggered, long range ambush laid in with indirect mortar support that will fire over the nearby hill into the kill zone. There are no mines, no traps below, nothing to give away the ambush site. The machine guns and rifles are being fired downslope at range, a heavier hunting round than the military used before the Shift, one with the range of a thousand yards if necessary. Three dozen men with these rifles are ready to move from heavily concealed hide sites to fire at the one who killed his only son and took his blade. Another six operate the three heavy machine guns in two man pairs, ready to set them up from their hidden locations and fire in less than a minute after the ambush is sprung.

He glances at the angle of the sun and frowns in thought, the man and his beast should have reached the blockage and had to reroute themselves by now, and this is the only remaining path forward after they backtrack a few hundred yards. There is a possibility they returned to the jungle, to find another beginning point for their ascent, but he had left a sentry that way as well, though it will take time for them to report in if he does indeed go that way. If he does, he will have to re-work his ambush, but it matters not, it is only a matter of time before his enemy makes a mistake, and then he will pay for it.

"Okay, this may have been a mistake," Tony says as they finally reach the ledge in the rock twelve hundred feet over the path they had been on before.

The ledge is three feet across, not meant for human feet, but sloped and pock marked, likely used by the occasional goat that must get up here, though Tony has no earthly idea how. He is breathing deep from the exertion of the climb, one of Maddie's daggers shoved down at an angle to provide him an anchor that he has tied himself off to as he sits down and looks at the landscape below and beyond him. The scene is unreal, and though he has a natural and healthy respect and fear of heights, the distance is initially boggling in scale before his mind understands and a shot of adrenaline hits his system.

Bagira says something in her language, and Tony only taps his chest to indicate the medallion and that he cannot understand her until the magic is back up. He looks up over her shoulder at the next slope, he has no idea how to grade its difficulty, but rather than an eighty-five to ninety degree angle, it is more along a seventy to eighty, technically an easier climb. Trouble is, it is a much longer one, this one winding up and side to side if he stays on the peak of it, the spur of the mountain's edge compared to the draws. He looks to the right, down to the ground and decides that they need to make the most of the lead that they are hopefully building.

He gestures to Bagira he will wait for ten minutes to rest, then they will continue, to which she nods and settles on her heels, her feet bare in the late afternoon light. Tony takes a breath and for a moment just enjoys the sight before him of the northern Indian Empire stretched out before him at a bird's eye view.

The ship's Captain looks at the report from his Intelligence officer, who also compiles the weather report daily for the ship and her course, frowning hard as he does. He sighs and picks up the report and heads to quarters the VIP shapeshifters are at, not happy to have to deliver this news.

Luang's expression is flat as he hears the report from the ship's Captain, Maddie beside him with a scowl.

"Can we go through it?" she asks, not growling, but clearly unhappy.

"We could, but we'd be fighting the whole way, our chances of sinking would go way up, and we wouldn't save any time," he explains, pointing the South Pacific storm cell they are facing. "We lose time going around, but we won't bear the brunt of the storm. We'll lose as much time and have damages and losses if we try to muscle through, and sinking is not an impossibility, it is a very serious risk."

"Then we go around, Captain, and we lose the time," Luang says, glancing at Maddie, who unhappily nods and turns from the room to return to her own quarters before yelling at someone or breaking something.

Richard stands on the roof of the office building that houses Hoffman Resources, staring off at the night cloaked Houston, lights dim in the magic soaked world. He does not turn as the door to the roof opens and Alex Hoffman, whose father started and owned the company before he was killed by Danny for leadership of Clan Cat, walks onto the roof. He had asked Alex to meet him here, and he turns as the were-lynx approaches. With dirty blond hair, he had once been a bookworm with little formal education and very little mentorship from anyone, whereas now he is a trained fighter and the Vice President of Operations for the company. Richard mentally shakes his head at the difference between the young man he had met then and the efficient corporate animal in an expensive suit approaching him now.

"You asked to see me, Khan," Alex says with a nod of his head.

"I did," Richard says with a nod and an easy expression, Alex his most trusted friend, not merely a subordinate. "How is Rosita?"

Alex smirks as he stops in arms reach of Richard at the edge of the roof as the two turn to look at the city together.

"She is doing good, they are talking about making her shift lead for the cleaning company she works at," he says with a nod. "I wish she would take a different job, but she enjoys the work, so what can I do?"

The question is rhetorical and Richard smiles in response, "Too true, what can we do, sometimes?" He takes a breath and shifts the topic to the reason he had called him here, "Are you tracking what I'm planning to do in order to block Roland?"

"Yes, sir," Alex says with a nod. "It's bold and likely to piss him off, but I agree that I don't see a better way."

"With what's coming, I'm going to be busy with the Horde and I'm going to have to take on other duties to manage the fallout," he says with a deep breath as he turns to Alex, who faces him in return. "I won't have the time to be the CEO anymore, so I think it's time for you to take up your father's legacy."

Alex's eyebrows rise in surprise, "I don't know, sir. Do you think I'm ready?"

"You're young, yes, but I'm not leaving, I just can't be part of the regular management due to other obligations, and it's not fair to the company because of that," Richard says with a shrug. "I still have controlling majority of the company, so I'll segue into a role as President, rather than CEO and manager. And you've ran the company in my absence before, you can handle it."

"We didn't always make a great profit when I did," Alex says with a frown at himself.

"But it continued on," Richard says as he lays a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I'll be here, and I'll still be an active participant, and eventually, when you've learned the rest of it, you'll be able to make the company prosper, like I did. Like your father did."

Alex takes a deep breath then pauses, "Okay, if you think I'm ready."

"You're ready," Richard says with a smile, patting his shoulder then turning from the edge of the roof. "Come on, I have the paperwork waiting in what will be my office for the next ten minutes, then you'll have to redecorate."

Tony ties the last knot and leans back, looking at the thin rope then back at his notebook with diagrams and descriptions of the uses of the knots. This notebook is the same as the waterproof one containing magic info he has not memorized yet, only this one is of various survival info his father had thrown at him from time to time. He checks that he has set it up correctly according to the diagram and once satisfied he puts the notebook away and climbs into the hammock. The hammock is made from the leather cloak he had taken from the castle and has not yet used, now rigging it to support his weight to allow him to lie down for a few hours of rest.

He still has the Swiss seat tied around his hips, though, and tied off to one of his daggers wedged into a slot made by the dragon bone daggers. The hammock hangs in the same fashion, and he swings slightly as his weight settles into it, rocking a bit but bumping into the rock wall on his right. Once he stills in movement, he glances at where Bagira is in an identical one that he had set up for her first, having shown her how he set it up and how to take it down. She nods to him that she will take watch, and he now turns to the vista beyond the edge of the hammock.

If he had thought that first view from the ascent of a thousand feet or so was impressive, that is nothing to the view he now has after three days of climbing up and down nearly vertical faces. He had pushed for as long as he dared without stopping, though they had paused to eat as they climbed. With his level of exertion and little rest, he would not be surprised if he has lost weight, but that cannot be helped. They are now thousands of feet above sea level, easily, though without a reliable map, Tony has no idea just how far above it.

All he is certain of is that he has been moving north far more than he has been moving east, following the river at first and once able to easily ford it they still kept northward. His hope is that he will get into China, Tibet is over the mountains from what Maddie told him, then start eastward. He has a large magical footprint, but in a land as ancient and steeped in history and tradition as China had been before the fall, they are currently the world's powerhouse when it comes to magic. Hopefully he is, at most, a gifted stranger to them, and if not, well, he will deal with that then.

With the magic up, he pulls his mirror from his pocket and blows off the dirt on it, checking to make sure the symbols have not been marred, and he focuses power into it. After a few moments as the runes gain radiance from his power, the surface flashes and shows the backdrop of the interior of a ship's cabin. He recognizes Maddie's cabin and as he thinks that her head swings into view with a smile on it as she meets his gaze.

"Mask," she says with a short laugh, and he nods while pulling off the mask, wincing at the bright sunlight but his mood soars as Maddie grins at him from thousands of miles away.

"I love you," Tony says from the heart, and Maddie blushes under the attention, making his own heart melt.

"I love you, too," she says with a smile at him before turning a stern look at him. "You haven't called in days, are you alright?"

"Fine," he says with a nod, "we got cut off by the Gurkhas and they blocked our path. Rather than take the roads, we cut the angle and went up the nearest hill… or, mountain, I guess."

"Do you know where you are?" she asks, the same she has asked before, and he is unable to give her a good answer.

"I'm north, northeast of where I came into the country, still no exact coordinates," he says, glancing out to the side then back at her. "Hey, look at this," he says, then turns the mirror to look out at the rolling mountains rolling into the distant green of a lush Indian jungle. He pans it back and forth for a few moments before turning it back to him.

"Did you get all that?" he asks, to which she nods with a tint of amazement, then an expression of realization hits her and she nearly scowls at him.

"Are you on a mountain top?" she asks pointedly, and Tony glances to the side where there is nothing but air beneath his hammock.

"Uh, not yet, probably later tonight," he says, smiling weakly.

"What are you laying on?" she asks, not letting him drop the subject.

"I made a hammock out of a cloak, rope and some 550 cord based off of some instructions dad gave me a couple months back," he says, frowning and shrugging uneasily.

"So you're just… hanging, off the side of a mountain?" she says, clearly not pleased.

"Well… yeah," he says with another shrug. "There was nowhere else to put it, and we needed a few hours rest, at least. We're ahead of our pursuers, but they need more rest than either of us do, even if they know the mountains better than we do. So we need to keep using that advantage."

She sighs unhappily, then looks at his face with a tight expression, "Have you been eating? You look thinner."

"Been climbing a lot, catching meals when we can," Tony says with a half shrug. "You've done the same on mission, now it's my turn, I guess."

She frowns unhappily before continuing, "We hit a storm, and we're moving south to go around it. The ship's Captain says it's the fastest way. Going through would take almost as long, and we'd have a one in three chance of sinking."

"Better to go around, then," Tony says with a nod, to which Maddie scowls but nods.

"I just wish I were there with you, to help you," she says with a sad expression, a worried expression.

Tony takes a deep breath, and says something even he does not expect, "Honey, I love you, but you need to trust me. I know I didn't graduate the Agoge or Ranger school, but life hasn't exactly been easy for me, especially this last year since I found dad. I can do this."

She smiles pensively, glances down at her hands and speaks for a moment without looking at him, "That's what Rick said, when I called him earlier."

"As annoying as it sometimes is, he's usually right, hon," he says with a gentle tone, not wanting to piss her off, knowing that his father and her adopted parent is a touchy subject with her on a normal day.

She sighs deeply before looking at him, "I know, and you're both right. I just miss you, and wish I could be with you right now."

"So do I," he says with a smirk and twist of his head. "I like my current battle buddy, she doesn't hold me back while we're moving, but she's not as good a fighter as you are."

"Flatterer," Maddie says with a smirk at him. "How far into the mountains are you, do you think?"

"Not far, we're doing a lot of vertical ascents right now getting into the meat of the mountains," Tony says, looking around at the mountains arrayed to his north. "But we're going to start walking the ridges west tomorrow, probably, try to throw off the guys following us. Bagira says they'll be pissed I took the kurki from the guy who tried to kill me."

"Considering the epic level of ass chewing Rick gave Jocelyn for taking his kurki, pissed is probably too mild a word," Maddie says with a concerned look on her face. "It was the first time I'd ever heard him swear when talking to her or me, I mean, he was that angry."

Tony blinks at that, "He swore at Jocelyn?"

"Not directly, it was more of an afterthought as he turned away after giving her a calm chewing out that he usually does when he gets into Khan mode, which he's never used on her before," she says with a tight expression. "Aunt A had just finished dressing her down for skipping out and blackmailing you into letting her tag along, and that's when Rick stepped in. She was already on the verge of tears and that sent her over the edge."

Tony frowns uncomfortably, "I'm sorry, by the way."

"What?" Maddie asks, looking up from where she had been looking at her hands.

"I'm sorry I dragged her into it," he says miserably. "Her and Ashley caught me at my apartment, had info that would speed up my search and wouldn't tell unless I took her with me."

"I don't blame you," Maddie says with a shake of her head. "Short of shooting her and tying her up, she would have followed you. She's my sister, remember, I know how she is."

"I'm still sorry," he says again with a slight shrug.

"Well, she's grounded until she finishes high school from the sounds of it, and he tasked the Xiang Clan to babysit, so she's now learning to speak, read and write Chinese," she says with a shrug of her own.

"There goes her summer vacation," Tony says with a shake of his head.

"I've talked with her through the other mirror, she's actually starting to enjoy the history and mythology lessons," she says with a nod. "She's giving me pointers when we talk, even though I have Ming and Lu here, it's making her feel like she's helping, especially since she feels so guilty for getting you trapped into that stupid oath you took."

Tony sighs frustratingly at that, "It had to be done. You saw what he did when you attacked, what he did to the vampires. Shit, I told you how I only beat him because Odin allowed me to use Mjolnir for a minute and assume the mantle of Thor, if only temporarily."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Maddie says crossly.

"Granted, but I had to do it," Tony says simply, then changes the topic. "How is Max?"

"Staying with Aunt A while I'm out of town, and she's stopping by your place to make sure nothing happens while you're gone," she says. "I grabbed extra arrows and some other gear before we left, including some armor the Xiangs have fashioned for you. Dark grey and black, it'll match your mask."

Tony sighs, shaking his head, "Great, I wonder how much that's going to set me back…"

"Nothing," Maddie says with a shake of her head. "They won't take payment, and _believe_ me I tried. They seem to feel that they need to compensate on behalf of the Horde, since you got a kick ass bow from the Vikings but nothing from the Horde."

"I had just figured out how to get my leather armor on quick and easy before it gets tore up, and now I'm going to have to relearn another set," Tony sighs and complains.

Maddie snorts, "Relax, it's not that different than stuff they had us train on in the Agoge, I'll help you figure it out."

"What else has been going on since I left?" he asks, starting to relax into the hammock.

"Oh, you're not going to believe what Aunt A accidentally turned Trixie into…"

The clan leader looks at the face of the mountain, a frown creasing his weather worn face as he gazes at the marks left in the stone. They had waited a day and a half at the ambush, then he had ordered they backtrack to find their quarry. He had thought they backtracked, retracing their trail and then managed to break off to either the east or west to approach the mountain from a different direction. Almost two days wasted before one of his scouts came to the site of the blockage, having been on the far side of it in case they made it over the obstruction and found the marks on the wall. He had not known what it was but knew it had to be related to their quarry, and now the clan leader is fighting not to swear as the meaning sinks in.

"He has many days lead on us, and he has taken a route which will be difficult to follow," he says to the man beside him, one of his captains and second in command. "Send out men to scout all the passes and paths across the mountain, look for him where he should not be. When we find him, we will judge his course then bring our men to bear on him."

"If he crosses the high ridge, the Mountain will become involved," the younger but highly experienced man says to his boss.

"Then we must catch him before he is beyond our reach," the leader says with a scowl of anger. "We cannot let my son's death go unavenged."

Tony frowns as he looks up at the mountain in front of him, huge and dominating the local landscape and sending a shiver down his spine. Maddie had reminded him during their conversation the other day that six of the ten tallest mountains were part of the Himalayas, including Mount Everest, the tallest in the world, and K2, the second tallest and considered the deadliest. Looking at the mountain in front of him, slightly northwest of where he stands, he has a feeling that this is K2 on the right, the deadliest mountain in the world.

Bagira mutters something in her own language beside him and makes a sign to ward off evil while also looking at the mountain, causing Tony to push magic into the medallion around his neck.

"What was that?" he asks.

"That is a dark mountain, we should not approach it," she says with a shake of her head, still staring at the mountain.

"Why do you say that?" he asks, forcing himself to look behind them then back at the mountain before resuming his walk along a lower ridge approaching the mountain.

"There are tales told of it even where I grew up," she says uneasily, her voice hushed as though afraid evil spirits will hear her. "Before the magic returned it was a place few dared tread, none live in the shadows of its peak and those who live out of its sight in the valleys speak of it reverently and with respect. With the return of magic, it is said that its slopes are always drenched with magic, and monsters roam its hills."

"Do the Gurkhas go there?" he asks, his mind again asking what his father would do.

She shakes her head in the negative, "Even they understand that powerful spirits roam there, and should not be disturbed."

"Good," Tony says, nodding. "Then that's the way we're going."

"What?" Bagira asks, turning to look at him. "No one has climbed that mountain and survived since before the Shift over thirty years ago. It is hell on earth."

Tony snorts as he looks up at the mountain, a sardonic smile on his face, "My father has a saying. 'When you look too long into the abyss, the abyss looks back.' Instead of wetting my pants, I think I'll do what he'd do, or my girlfriend would do."

"What is that?" Bagira asks, still following him as he approaches the mountain.

"I'm going to punch the abyss in the face and make it my bitch," he says with a twist of his head.

The clan leader looks up from the magazine article in his hands, an English printed business magazine sent to him by his employer for the contract on the archer. The magazine and a folder with other reports had been sent after he had requested more information about his quarry, as the initial impression of a mere human archer has been inaccurate. The magazine article had been illuminating, in that now he knows who the archer's mentor is, this man who fashions himself a Khan in America. With the overview of the Khan at hand, as well as a report on what the archer had accomplished against the Lich and the Soldier, he now realizes the type of the opponent he faces.

"Assemble our priests," the veteran says to his Captain, a slight frown on his usually stoic face. "And gather our best ten men, there is only one way to catch this man before he crosses the mountains."

"I'd like to go on the record that this is a horrible idea," Autumn says to Rick from the back of her Chimera colored horse, he on his own chestnut beside her, four guards with them as they ride to downtown Houston.

"How many times can you go on the record and say the same thing?" he asks with a teasing tone in his voice.

"At least once more," she says with a firm nod. "This is a bad idea."

"Well, bad is better than horrible," he says with a contemplative frown. "Do you want to stick with bad and have horrible stricken from the record, or do you want to go back to horrible? Y'know, for the record."

"Be a smartass if you want, but this is still not a good idea, and you know it," she says with a frown at him, not amused.

"Got it, you disapprove," he says with a nod as they turn the corner to where he is meeting with Roland's emissary at the top of the Hilton Hotel.

He glances towards the top, ten stories above the ground and taller than any other building in town, hand built by humans and shapeshifters, most contracted through Hoffman Resources, though having no stake in the building or company. They ride to the front and Richard recognizes a set of guards on the front door from the NeoVikings, nodding internally to himself. The guards hold the doors for him and Autumn after they dismount and enter the lobby, walking to the stairs to ascend to the roof.

"It had to be on the top floor, didn't it?" she mumbles under her breath as they walk up, their guards having stayed in the lobby.

Richard only smiles tightly to himself, mentally placing himself into the right headspace for the tasks ahead. Autumn wears her usual jeans and blouse under a light gray cloak and her staff in hand, and Richard is dressed casually as well in jeans, t-shirt and vest, a pair of knives on his belt as well as Krigsherre. A lot of argument had taken place within the Council of Alphas and with the other groups Richard has shared the plan with, and all have reservations of one sort or another, but he sees no other way and the others have no better plan. The next best option is to continue to try and bide their time and hope Roland does not push them, though they all know that is not a winning strategy. Autumn had grudgingly accepted that his plan, as insane as it seems on the surface, is the best of a lot of bad options available.

Richard enters into the top floor of the building, completely in Khan mode, his red t-shirt and black vest combining with his own naturally menacing facial disposition and years of training dominating the room he enters immediately. He strides across the large open floor where tables are located along the walls, filled with the leading representatives from the magic and law enforcement communities.

On the right side the NeoVikings have a table with Thor in their center, flanked by the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. Beside them the Nation, Native Americans of magic, shapeshifting and mundane ability sit at their own table, though far less powerful than last year, having suffered greatly in the attack on them by Tiamat last fall. On the left side of the room is a table for the Rabbis, leaders of the Jewish leaders and who have a stronghold known as the Temple in the city, next to Pegasus Way, the area of the county that has wild and powerful magic in it 24/7. Next to them are two slightly smaller tables, one with the Chief Ranger for the area, the Chief of the Houston Police Department, the other with the leaders of the Russian Vohls and Witches in town. Though a small table, the Russian contingent is as influential as or more so than the Rabbis, they simply have fewer representatives.

On the far side of the room, which is usually used for expensive wedding receptions and parties, sits the focus of the room, the female shapeshifter sent as a representative from Roland to the Khan. Richard stops ten yards from the woman, Autumn behind and to his right, her cloak open to allow her arms free movement, the sleeves of her dark blue blouse uncharacteristically rolled up nearly to her elbows. The woman is standing where the dance floor would normally be, a small stage behind her for a band under normal circumstances. She wears another elegant cocktail dress, this one in a deep burgundy and with lace, slit up the side to mid-thigh and elbow length gloves of thin, nearly transparent cloth.

"I have spoken to the other representatives of the significant groups in the area," Richard says, gesturing to the others in the room, the leaders of which stand so as to present a united front. "And though possibly advantageous to have a representative of the Masters of the Dead in town, we have decided not to allow them admittance."

The woman nods slowly, her eyes now focused on Richard with an intensity that cannot be mistaken for anything but dangerous, "And to the other? Do you wish to adjourn elsewhere to discuss…"

"Actions speak louder than words," Richard says with a glance at all the senior leaders present. "And I believe that those in this room deserve to know, in order to prepare for the road ahead. Thor?"

The Viking is dressed in sleeveless armor and red cloak billowing behind him as he tosses the table aside with ease, Mjolnir in hand with arcs of electricity dancing along its surface. Autumn thumps her staff on the ground and glyphs and circles of protection appear as orange light on the ground, a prepared and stored spell within the staff creating the circles. The Emissary looks down at the glyphs on the ground, dancing in alternating directions of clockwise and counter clockwise in the seven layers of the spell. Thor raises then points his hammer at the circle and lightning arcs out at the circle of protection, absorbed by it as it funnels the power of the lightning into the glyphs of the spell, the symbols moving faster and faster as the power builds, spinning around Richard in the center, Autumn just behind him.

"NO!" the woman screams, shifting and ripping her clothes away as she becomes a were-fox in warrior form while she leaps across and tries to tackle Richard inside the circle.

Normally a circle protects from magic and physical attack, but this one had been crafted for only magic, so the woman passes through uninhibited. Richard catches her with his left arm, only taking a half step back to accept her weight, shifting and throwing her backhanded into and through the far wall. The magic in the circle builds as the others in the room shield their eyes and erect wards to protect themselves if they are able, the others making barriers with the tables.

Only a few breaths after the Emissary has been thrown from the building a figure coalesces in the opening created, floating to the floor thirty yards from Richard and his circle.

" _ **You are making a mistake**_ ," the figure says in a deep yet honeyed tone, and Richard can sense the power gathering behind the man, manifested within the thunderstorm behind him.

"This is _our_ land," Richard snarls as he pulls his sword from his hip, switching it to his left hand and holding his black scaled hand out to his right. "You have no right to come here and demand that we abandon it or sell ourselves as slaves!" he yells the last as Autumn thrusts her right hand forward in a knife hand at his right arm.

A line of divine fire lances out and engulfs Richard's right arm up to the forearm and he roars at the pain but locks himself steady as the outline of his hand fades and disappears. Roland had flinched at the actions, completely surprised at the blood and sacrifice the Khan is willing to make. He shakes the surprise quickly, though, and with a gesture the roof of the building splits and exposes the room to the roiling thunderclouds above. The ancient man who sees himself as a god raises his hands skyward, summoning the storm to power his spell, but the lightning arcs not to his hands to accept the power, but to the raised Mjolnir in Thor's hands.

"The storm is mine to command, wizard!" Thor bellows from where he stands to the side, cloak billowing behind him against the wind and he grits his teeth as he accepts and redirects the power of the storm into Richard and Autumn's circle instead.

"You do not own this land, your power is weaker here than at your center," Richard says as he lowers his right arm and twirls the sword in his left. "And this land is no longer up for grabs, this land is MINE!"

Richard thrusts the sword into the hardwood floor and concrete at his feet, the power surging within the ward and booming outward in a mystical explosion, rushing out for miles and marking the territory of the Khan. Roland raises his hands against the explosion of magic and with a snap of power disappears from the building. The others in the room blink as the magic dissipates, most rising from defensive crouches to look at where Roland had been and where Richard now stands with his sword sticking out of the hardwood floor in front of him. He takes a few deep, measured breaths as he looks around the gathered leaders and the ruffled and disarrayed furniture, then pulls his sword from the floor and sheathes it back at his side.

"If we can right the furniture, I imagine we should probably discuss what just took place, and work out the details," Richard says as he gestures behind him, where his people, Agogites one and all, enter to set up another table for Richard and Autumn to talk with the Conclave.

Tasha sits up abruptly with a gasp, finally free of the pain that has been infusing her being for an incalculable period, the pain making any sense of time meaningless. She blinks while taking deep draughts of air, her heart beating frantically in her chest, an unknown sound for countless ages. She rolls to the side and falls from the bed, a tangle of IV lines in her arm ripping free with an unnoticed stab of pain that is nothing compared to the hell she has been experiencing. She looks up as a pair of medics enter the room, one male one female, and she pushes back from them using her heels, her eyes wide and frantic.

The Gurkha Clan leader watches as the five holy men from his main village work in a half circle around the mouth of a cave barely large enough for a man to walk through upright. A ward is placed as a half circle around it, runes and glyphs glowing in the night and pulsing in time with their chants. The cave is the doorway to the mountain, a magic drenched hell on earth that harbors monsters and creatures that defy explanation. For reasons unknown, his quarry has headed directly for it, as if to pass between the two great peaks, and he has outdistanced him, in his own homeland.

This cannot be borne, honor demands that he do anything to catch this man who killed his son, stole the family blade and evades capture of his men. Some of the others disagree with his methods, though, recognizing the ceremony as a call to the darker gods within the earth that want man to be wiped from the land to return to its more natural creatures. He does not care, only cares for retribution, and to avenge his fallen son…

Richard is sitting at the re-arranged meeting room discussing the ramifications of him Claiming Houston and much of the surrounding area with the other local leaders. It had taken twenty minutes for them to finish yelling and declaring their outrage at him, the first five of which had been all the groups yelling before he had literally roared over them all and told them they could complain in turns. He had the Rabbis go first, which was a mistake, as they took another ten minutes alone to read off in great detail the reasons his decision was rash and foolish. He had asked what he should have done in response, to which they had replied, in essence, "something else, and we should have been consulted".

The other groups started along the same vein, with the Rangers and Chief of Police next, and when they more or less repeated what the Rabbis had said, he had cut them off and asked if they had any other alternatives he should of done, and they had nothing much different to add than the Rabbis. The other groups said likewise, and he cut them short likewise, except for the Vikings, who had no comment, as they had been consulted. Now it is another hour later and he is mostly complete with hammering out the general outline for how matters will be handled in the new power structure, which boils down to "not much different than before, except all groups need to keep the Khan appraised in case a bigger gun is needed, specifically when dealing with outsiders".

Richard had kept his right stump on the table in full view of the others and pointed out during their complaining phase that he has personally sacrificed an awful damned much to keep Roland from Claiming the city. This he followed up with the question to the group of who, if any of them, was willing to sacrifice a limb of their own and the magic capital he had invested in order to have conducted a counter Claim to Roland, which none of them responded, as none were powerful enough to do so. The limb had stopped bleeding relatively quickly, aided by a short spell by Autumn to speed the healing and trigger the regeneration of the lost limb, without her staff in hand.

Autumn has been a silent participant at his side, drawing a few curious gazes, as only the Rabbis and the Vikings were fully aware of her power level, even the Vohls kept in the dark from Mrs. Domasca and Stan, the White Vohl. The law enforcement group is now in the process of specifying and getting confirmation that Richard and the Horde will not interfere with trade in the port and by ground when a shapeshifter enters the room from the stairs. Richard has already turned to look at the newcomer, recognizing him as one of the security personnel, and noting he is in warrior form and breathing deep from a long run. Richard assumes he is from the Bastion, which is confirmed when he bends down and whispers in his Khan's ear.

"The Nimir-ra is awake, but full of rage. They've had to lock down part of the medical wing, and she will listen to no-one," the man says through his were-wolf teeth. "Mischa is kept away by security and is greatly distressed."

Richard stands immediately with a scrape of his chair on the floor, and the Chief of Police stops in his triad about trade with surprise.

"My apologies to all of you, but I have a family emergency at home I must attend to," he says, gesturing Mr. Domasca to come forward from where he had been standing along the wall along with his wife and Mitchell, the Cat Clan Alpha. "The Alphas will discuss the remainder of the details with Ms. O'Connell in my stead. Good day."

He says it all in a factual tone, not open to negotiation, to which the other groups bristle, except the Vikings, who have had little input at this point, having already worked out the details of the arrangement. He turns and leaves the room, followed by the messenger, shifting to warrior form as he does, his ripped clothing left behind and he snatches his katana before it hits the ground. He leads the other shapeshifter down the stairs to the street, where he speeds up to a sprint as he runs home to his distressed mate.

Tony is scanning the darkness along the foot of the mountain known as K2 to the western world, the locals having a far more foreboding name for it but that he cannot pronounce effectively. His eyes glow with the magic of the charm Aunt A had given him to see the colors of the magical spectrum as he looks around. They had entered a place where magic rules all the time, regardless if whether the rest of the world is ruled by technology or magic. The charm only has so many hours of usage available, but after being caught unawares the last time by the Gurkhas, he cannot chance running into another ambush unawares.

It is with this in mind that he slows and signals a halt to Bagira, who is behind him and to the side with a spear in hand and a dagger at her hip. He can see a faint pulse in the magic spectrum in the folds of landscape ahead, and he seats an arrow to string and holds it ready as his right hand slowly removes the kurki at his hip. He tosses the blade in a lazy arc twenty yards ahead and it thumps dully in the fading light of day as twilight and night approach.

"Take it and go, I have no wish to harm anyone, I just wish to be on my way, and return home," he says in a firm and loud tone, his voice carrying clearly through the rough, small hollow in front of him.

After a few moments of silence, the odd eddies of magic he had seen with his magical sight, but his normal senses had not, swirl and pop, revealing eleven figures in reinforced leather armor, bows in hand with swords at their sides and kurkis of their own strapped to their bodies. They move forward from the gathering shadows, and Tony is wary as the one, an older man with dark hair that has a few strands of gray mixed in, steps in front of the others twenty yards away with a nearly flat expression. A normal person would see nothing out of the ordinary, but Tony's enhanced senses allow him to see the distance as though he were an inch away, and he sees the anger and rage boiling beneath the surface of the man's eyes.

"You killed my son," the man says in a hard tone. "Contracts be damned, he was my eldest child and only son. Honor demands he be avenged."

"He fought well and died fighting," Tony says, his tone respectful, but not easing his ready stance. "I have no quarrel with you, do not make the problem I have with the other become one with you, as well. This is your last chance."

"You took his blade, you must prove your worth," the man says, gesturing to the other warriors with him. "If you fail, you die."

He jerks his head, and one of the men strides forward as he raises his bow and begins to draw an arrow to fire at Tony. Tony notes the other men do not move, but allows the man to move against him solo. Tony draws and fires, the man swaying and ducking the arrow, still moving forward while Tony does the same, Bagira holding back and waiting for a sign to interfere. The other warrior fires and Tony has not drawn another arrow, but shifted slightly and deflected the arrow with his bow, drawing a pair of arrows and firing from ten yards away. The man tries to sway out of the way of the arrows, but though one misses, the other of the mundane arrows strikes his right bicep and passes clean through. Another arrow is seated and fired, the man stumbling to get out of the way, but miscalculates, and the next mundane arrow cuts cleanly through the right outer thigh with a deep gash. The man falls with the crippled leg, and Tony turns to the group again, dismissing the man as defeated, though his senses keep track of him in case he is less than honorable.

The leader of the Gurkhas starts to frown and nods again, and another man moves forward, this one with a spear, and Tony fires a pair of arrows again, this time one deflected by the shaft and the other dodged. Tony moves closer and uses his bow as a bludgeon to block as he fights, then drawing and firing in a flash into the man's right shoulder from a pair of feet away while spinning under the swing of the spear. The mundane arrow pierces the leather and through the man's body to push the leather at the back, Tony not having fully drawn the string back, and the man stumbles away for a moment in pain. Tony snaps a kick at the man's knee, and the warrior falls to the side, clutching his leg as he tumbles away.

"Have you no skill with a blade?" the leader asks with a look of rising anger. "Are you only a poacher of men, and not a noble warrior? Are you incapable of honorable one-on-one combat on even footing?"

Tony pauses to consider the statement, then putting his bow across his back and pulling a short sword from his hip, a long dagger in the other. The leader nods and two warriors step forward now, one with a short sword and kurki, the other with a battle axe raised. Tony has yet to tap into his slowed sense of time, and though the adrenaline is starting to hit his system now, he still does not as he parries and fights defensively for a few breaths. Sensing the rhythm the men are aiming for he counters and ducks while slashing during a spin to avoid a thrust from one on the left to cut in the knee of the one in front of him. He shifts and pulls a somersault to suddenly be on his feet and directly in front of the other man, shoving the pommel of his sword into the man's jaw.

The man falls like a dead weight, unconscious with a broken jaw and the other man with his kurki held before him as his other hand holds his injured leg. Tony relaxes his stance and backs a few paces from the man and turns to look at the leader of the band through the eyeholes of his mask.

"You want to test me, to see if I'm worthy, then stop wasting others' blood and fight me yourself, if you wish so much for vengeance," Tony says, his breathing slightly labored, and wanting to get to the end of this.

If he fights them all in ones and twos, he will be too tired to fight the last man if their skill levels and/or numbers increase as time goes by. His gambit works and the man's barely controlled anger spills out as he pulls his kurki from his thigh and a slightly smaller version of the Ganga Ram is pulled from the small of his back. Tony holds his own blades at the ready and prepares to slow his perceptions as the seasoned veteran attacks him.

Tony turns and starts to block one strike but immediately has to shift and react to the other in the dual combo, the odd attack putting him off balance. He shifts and moves to avoid injury but has difficulty as the man's years of experience make every move second nature and requiring no thought, even if he is raging at the death of his son. Tony is reminded of sparring matches with his father. He almost always lost those matches unless the Khan purposely pulled his punches, and that is the only reason that Tony only receives scratches along his leather armor instead of cuts and gashes across his limbs and one across his chest piece. If he had trained with lesser men than his father and those trained through the Agoge, he would likely be dead already.

The man does not allow him time to regroup through the five minutes of real time fighting, which to Tony feels like an eternity as he moves at the edge of human reaction speed due to his enhanced perceptions. Seeing that fighting with a similar weapon style will get him killed in the end, he shifts his style and between one attack and the next, flipping the short sword and then the dagger at the man's face. The short sword is deflected away with the kurki and the dagger dodged, and Tony's exposed leg is scored with a deep gouge by the veteran's shorter blade, which nearly costs him his focus but he had prepared for the distraction and continues his motion. His bow is off his back and in his hands, which he uses now as a two handed weapon, no time to spare to try and pull an arrow, but the larger and longer weapon allowing him to offset the other man's dual weapon attacks, forcing him to change fighting styles slightly.

The shift allows Tony to regain his own balance and footing and start going on the offensive, if only temporarily as the other man still has decades of experience, and they are now trading attacks, blocks, parries and dodges equally. Tony notes the throbbing in his leg and the blood down to the ground as a continuously bleeding wound, though the magic in his system naturally increases his healing factor, but still slower than the average shapeshifter by far. After another minute of trading attacks he guesses he has a pair minutes max before the blood loss finishes the battle for him, and he figures the other man knows that, hence his measured, careful attacks and parries.

Tony flips the bow and shoves magic in it, as he did his sword before, hoping to cause the string aimed at the man to alight with magical fire or electricity, but getting a far different effect instead. The bow shifts and transforms all along its length to become a six foot long black and green shaft with a slightly curved, six inch blade on the end that resembles a dragon's tooth. One moment he is swinging the bow at the man's head, then next the wicked looking black blade is there at one end, closing at the man's face. The man weaves back on instinct but too late, as the slash catches him across the face and nose, sending a spray of blood into the night and opening his sinus cavity to the sky.

Tony's slowed perceptions allow him overcome his surprise between heartbeats before the slash landed, allowing him to turn and follow through with another attack as the man stumbles. Tony uses the staff's lower haft to knock the kurki from the chieftain's pain weakened grip, then spins and swings low to knock him from his feet violently. He shifts and ends with the main blade of the spear pointed at the man's throat, the edge a hair's breadth away from skin and Tony out of reach of any hand weapons. Tony regains normal sense of time over a pair of breaths, looking down the shaft of his short spear at the man lying on his back.

"I am not your enemy," Tony says, breathing deeply with the exertion of the fight. "Not long ago, the one you served was your enemy, and the land I came from you counted as an ally."

Tony steps back, but keeps his spear at the ready as he does so, still wary and conscious that he is in enemy territory.

"My father fought at the side of your brothers, was gifted a blade forged by one of your Clans," Tony says, glancing at the chieftain and the others still around him. "I ask for nothing, only safe passage, and that you remember where you came from, who you really are… just as I have learned who I really am…"

The chieftain rises as he pulls a cloth from his belt and holds it against his bleeding face, his nose half cut off from Tony's spear slash. He moves to the side without taking his eyes off of Tony and lowers himself to pick up the kurki Tony had tossed forward, a Ganga Ram like the chieftain's.

"The contract is closed, you are not my enemy," he says as he tosses his son's kurki to Tony, blood spraying from his breath as he talks. "You are worthy to bear my son's blade. May you never dishonor his memory, or your father's, whomever he may be."

After a moment of thought, Tony answers, hoping he is right in his decision, "When he worked with your people, he was Sergeant Hessberg, and now he rules in Texas as Khan of all shapeshifters within reach of his influence."

The veteran tilts his head and surprise, then nods to Tony in respect, "He was a great soldier, and I was proud to fight at his side. Do not dishonor him, Son of Hessberg."

Tony nods silently in response, having caught the previously tossed blade and sheathing it on his thigh. He gestures to Bagira and the two move past the remaining Gurkhas, closer to the pass between K1 and K2.

Richard pauses for nothing as he runs through the outskirts of Houston and to the Bastion. The guards are unable to open the gate in time, and he leaps on the wall, scrambling over it in a flash and into the closest entry to the underground compound. He moves quickly and with regard to the fastest way to the medical wing, and when his hybrid form skids to a stop in front of a human formed medic, his seven foot tall warrior form shrinks to his human form in the span of a second. He stands naked in the hall, unabashed and looks at the senior medic in front of the steel door sealing off the ward his wife had been convalescing in.

"What is her status?" he asks, trying not to growl and failing.

"She is _not_ loup, sir," the medic, a black man wearing scrubs in his late twenties, looking hard at the floor in front of him and not at Richard, who is looking past him at the door. "She came out of her coma and freaked out when the orderlies and guards tried to calm her down or restrain her. She doesn't recognize anyone, and the Consort has beaten four security personnel into unconsciousness and hurt others as she attempts to reach the Nimir-ra."

Richard snarls involuntarily, having enough issues without having to worry about Mischa, "Where is the Consort?"

"Locked in a room down that hall, second left, Khan," the man says, still looking at the ground. "There are two guards holding the door."

Richard pauses before taking off and places a hand on the taller man's shoulder, "You did the right thing. You triage the wounded, keep people safe, and you didn't let anyone unnecessarily risk themselves. Keep at it, hopefully this will be over soon."

With that he turns and sprints barefoot down the hall to where his wife's girlfriend is trying to gain access to his mate.

Tony eases the pack from his back as he checks their surroundings again, a shallow cave in the mountainside, K2 rising to their right, K1 distantly to their left. He has no intention of climbing either, and now that the Gurkhas are behind him, he figures now is the best time to catch some rest. Bagira watches the area as he chants over his leg, speeding his healing up and joining the flesh together beneath the bandage he had wrapped over it. He pulls the bandage off and frowns at the scar across the thigh, wiping it down to clean it, then pulling the legging off altogether.

He spends thirty minutes sewing a rough patch onto the armor, then puts the legging back into place over the sore, healing tissue, another scar among many. He lays out his pack and pulls his cloak around himself as he lies back to try and relax for a little while.

"I'm tired enough to take a nap, you good with guard for a few hours?" he asks, looking to Bagira.

"I will keep watch, sir, if you will watch me for a few hours when you awake," she says with a deferential nod.

Tony nods in response, wishing she would ease her tone towards him, but accepting it as unchangeable.

Mischa pulls back and kicks the door again, snarling under her breath as the metal door shudders and strains in place. The security has stopped listening to her and she needs to get out of this room and find Tasha, she needs her. She pulls back to kick it again but pauses as the handle turns and the door is pushed towards her and falls off its hinges, clattering to the ground. She prepares to bound through the opening, hoping to get past the guards quickly but pauses as she sees that Richard is the one who has opened the door, wearing a pair of sweatpants and bare-chested, black lines across his chest and his right hand missing.

"Stand down," Richard says, his voice nearly a snarl.

"She needs me," Mischa says, trying to push past him, but he grabs her arm with his remaining left hand.

"You need to keep our kids safe, not run into danger," he says in a low tone, and she snarls at him in return.

"She's hurting and she needs me," she snaps back at him in anger.

"I'm her mate, and _I_ will calm her," he says, his eyes flashing as he holds her tight when she tries to jerk away. "When it is safe, then you can see her. Understand?"

"I'm as much her mate as you," Mischa snarls at him, her own eyes flashing in anger at him and the world.

Richard clenches his jaw and pulls her closer to him, talking quietly so the others down the hall do not hear them, "I don't have time for this. When it's clear, I'll send a runner for you."

Mischa's eyes blaze at him, "And if I decide to come anyway?"

"Then you risk her babies," Richard says as he makes eye contact with her, his gaze intent. "And mine."

Mischa's jaw clenches a few times before she steps back into the room, "Sometimes I hate you," she growls, looking away. "I'll wait, but not forever."

"Thank you," Richard says, turning from the room and striding down the corridor to find his wife and mate.

She pulls another of the soft paddings to the room she is using as her den, ears open for threats as she tries to make a safe place to rest. She had tried to pull open the walls, a distant memory telling her that confines can be broken if you push or rip it apart enough. That had gotten her nowhere, though, as after the artificial stone there was dirt and more dirt. She is in a cave somewhere, made by someone… something…

She stops at the door of the room she had awoken in, mattress in hand, as a sound rolls down the hall, a male's voice calling… calling..

"Tasha!" the voice calls, the sound familiar, and the voice calls it again. "Ta-sha!"

She shakes her head as she grips it with one hand, her dirty blond hair falling over her face as she tries to focus, a memory painfully rising to the surface of her mind. A mind so used to only pain and agony that a thick layer of mental scars cover it to protect her from the worst of the torture she has endured for time beyond measure. A line cracks in the scars and a face rises up to her, a name, but she does not understand. The sound of the male calling comes closer and she drops the mattress and picks up the metal rod she had pulled from the frame of one of the soft things she has been hoarding.

She prowls low down the hall with her weapon at the ready, familiar only with pain and determined not to go back that nightmare realm she has emerged from.

Richard walks down the center of the hall, this wing shut down since Tasha awoke, fortunately devoid of any other patients at the time, the few nurses and the doctor on standby having evacuated and locked it down. It is two parallel hallways and one connecting it in an H shape, rooms bordering it, and he is in the hall connected to the main complex of the Bastion. He had reinforced gates placed to cut off the wings in the event of someone going Loup or if an enemy had managed to get inside and they needed to defend or cut off the invaders.

He is walking very slowly and pausing at the doors to sample the air as he walks, calling out her name as he does, not hunting prey, but seeking his mate. He is past the cross corridor when a figure comes over the top of the nurses' station, a metal bar in hand. He reacts on instinct and dodges the swing from the steel bar and dips back from the next attack and the next, recognizing Tasha's wild eyes behind the fall of dirty blond hair. After a few long breaths of her attacking and him backing up and dodging she pauses in her attacks and stares at him, her weapon held before him. Her eyes are focused on him, but he sees no recognition in them, no recollection.

"Tasha?" he says softly, lowering himself with his arms before him, his one hand open in a placating gesture. "Tasha? Do you remember me? I'm Richard. Mate…"

Tasha narrows her eyes at him, studying him, and she takes a tentative step closer to him, her nose sniffing the air loudly. Richard is on one knee, his good hand held out to her and she slowly approaches him, her weapon still held between them. She slowly lowers herself and eases closer, her attention on his hand and she carefully takes it in her own, rubbing her nose on it and breathing deep. Richard can see tension ease out of her shoulders slightly as she closes her eyes and cups his hand against her face, which he strokes gently.

He murmurs soft words of affection as she drops the metal bar and wraps him in her arms, her face buried against his chest. He holds her and caresses her back and hair, wondering what the hell he should do next…

Tony wakes from his doze slowly, blinking in the mid-day light filtered by his mask and shifting his body to the side. He stretches his awareness and stops his movement as he senses something wrong, Bagira sitting perfectly still a dozen yards distant, facing towards him, not outwards. He turns his head and can see and only hear their heartbeats, but not smell, the three men standing next to Bagira, one with a slightly curved sword held at her neck. The other two simply stand and stare at him, all three of the figures in what looks like black and brown silk, hoods and cowls concealing their features except for a slit for their eyes. All three have brown eyes and epicanthic folds to their eyes, with one standing behind Bagira having a bow across his back and quiver on his hip.

"Let her go," Tony says calmly from where he is still mostly reclined on the ground after pushing magic into the charm that allows him to speak and understand any language.

"You are the one we have been sent to bring to the master," the one with the blade on Bagira's throat says in an even, formal tone. "She is inconsequential."

"Hurt her and you die," Tony says simply, his hand having been resting on his bow while he slept, his quiver within arm's reach.

"We witnessed your battle on the mountainside with the Gurkhas," the man says, unperturbed, blade held steady. "The master was impressed, and wishes an audience. He is not one to be refused."

"I'm busy at the moment, a long journey looms ahead," Tony replies, slowly easing to his feet, the man not reacting, but keeping the sword where it is.

"The Master promises safe travels through his lands, upon which you now stand, and reaches to the north to Tibet," the man says. "You will be his guest, and will be provisioned before you continue your quest."

"And if I say 'no'?" Tony asks, judging he could probably take them if he has to, but unsure if Bagira would survive the encounter.

"We are but a small number compared to those our master commands," the man says easily.

"Swear it by blood, and I will come," Tony says after a moment of thought.

The man moves the sword without hesitation and cuts open his palm for Tony to see, blood dripping through his fingers to the ground.

"I swear you and your companion will have safe passage through my master's lands and will be provisioned before continuing your journey," the man intones, a thrum of magic sealing his words.

"We'll pack up camp then follow," Tony says, standing and wary of the three men.

"You will not be able to follow our trail, we will wait," the man says, moving another dozen yards away with the other men and waiting as Tony and Bagira quietly clean up camp.

Richard holds Trisha's hand firmly as they walk down the hall of the Infirmary section of the Bastion. He has no real idea what to compare her condition to except for amnesia, maybe, or what someone left in the wild as a child would be like if they came back to society. Either her mind was altered to be like this, or something was done to her while she was in the coma to turn her into this, but either way, he knows that Roland must be the one responsible.

Unlike many survivors of trauma, however, Tasha is not afraid of anyone they pass or encounter in the hall, she is curious and definitely not afraid. She was aggressive initially when he had the doors opened for them out of the ward she had been in, but with his soothing tone and gestures, she had quickly eased to being merely cautious as they walk. She had become less stressed, but still cautious as those they do encounter give her nods of greeting that are friendly and/or respectful.

He is no shrink, so he is following his instincts, bringing Tasha to a door where a guard stands outside, moving aside as he nods respectfully to Richard and averts his gaze. He lets go of Tasha and opens the door, revealing Mischa sitting in a chair on the far side of the room. She rises from her seat slowly as Tasha stares at her with narrowed and cautious eyes, her nose sampling the air as she tries to identify her.

"Tash, it's me, Mish," she says softly, reaching out one hand towards the other woman, the other held over her swollen stomach.

Tasha moves closer slowly, breathing through nose and mouth as she approaches, wearing Horde sweats that Richard had managed to get her to wear. Once closer she takes Mischa's hand, sniffing it then up her arm to her head and her hair. Richard relaxes more once Tasha's tension eases, rubbing her nose against the other woman's neck in much the same way she did to him not long ago.

"Why isn't she talking?" Mischa asks as Tasha carefully traces a hand along her pregnant belly.

"I'm not sure," he says with a tight expression, his tone still easy so as not to disturb Tasha. "Either she had a mind wipe of some sort, or an effect of the spell we didn't anticipate. All I know for sure is its Roland's fault."

"I felt the Claiming," Mischa says with raised eyebrow. "What do you think he'll do?"

"Nothing good, and likely to be lacking in subtlety, but I could be wrong," he says with a sigh of worry, to which Tasha turns and looks at him with a focused expression.

"Richard, mate," Richard says, repeating his name to her as he pats his chest with his good hand.

"Mischa, mother," Mischa adds in her own calming tones as she pats her chest, then her stomach.

"Mischa," Richard says, closer to them now and touching her shoulder, then pointing to himself again. "Richard," he says, then lays a calm hand on Tasha's shoulder. "Tasha," he says while holding her gaze solidly.

He gives her a questioning look and points at his own chest again, and after a few more gestures, she nods and tries to form sounds in her own mouth. After a few tries she coughs and looks down while concentrating to speak.

"M-ate…" she nearly growls out, and Richard nods.

"Mate," he says, gesturing to his chest, then to her again. "Mate," he says, patting her shoulder while looking at her firmly, indicating he claims her as such, a possessive sense that she nods.

"Mm-ate," Tasha says with a nod, holding his arm, then laying a hand on Mischa's shoulder. "Mate," she says with a nod.

"This is going to take a while," Richard says with a tight smile.

"I'm just glad she's back," Mischa says, reaching over and pulling Tasha into a hug the other woman returns with a smile and closed eyes as she enjoys the embrace.

Tony pauses as he looks up from the ragged spur on the side of the mountain they are ascending, peering at the deep draw in the mountain at the end of the valley below to their side. Carved into the mountainside is what looks like a palace of some sort, though a castle or citadel would be an appropriate title for it. Hard stone, high arched doors in the front, as well as arching windows that Tony vaguely recognizes as Chinese, or something similar. The three men are a dozen yards in front of him, and still he smells nothing of them, and they make no sound as they walk, as though they were a play of light and shadow, not real people, the sound of their unstressed heartbeats the only thing reassuring him they are real.

His attention is divided between them and the palace of rock as they approach it, and trying not to stare or be distracted, as the rock is carved from the face of the cliff's side masterfully. The leader of the three escorting them speaks over his shoulder as they continue to approach.

"This place has been shrouded from mankind since before the fall of magic in the last age, with technology ruling in its place," the man says in a reverent tone. "Time passes differently here, and those of us called to serve know not the tribulations of old age."

"What does that mean?" Tony asks, his brow furrowed under his mask. "I don't understand."

"You will, should the master wish it," the man says as they close in on the main doors of the palace.

The stone palace has a pair of heavy oaken doors with iron bands bolted across it which open of their own accord as they approach. Tony glances around, noting the six stories of windows above, not all evenly leveled, varying in size and height, indicating he knows not what. They enter the palace doors, and Tony studies his surroundings carefully, Bagira just behind him to his right in a subdued maroon robe that is tied with a sash to allow her to shift quickly when needed. They keep their bags with them despite being offered to leave them with a servant, a young man in simple tan robes with a shaved head and thin goatee.

After a walk of ten minutes, taking them up flights of stairs, down corridors and past doors, they enter through a large entrance to an area Tony can only call a throne room, but with no throne. The space is like the rest of the palace he has seen, not built from bricks and masonry, but carved from the rock itself, seamless. The room is spacious and a trio of large windows line the left wall, allowing sunlight to spill in from the high afternoon sun. The floor is bare but for the thick green rug running down the center with intricate patterns weaved into its border, fooling the eye to simulate movement where there is none.

Where he would anticipate a throne to be is instead a slightly elevated cushion where a man sits in the lotus position, wearing dark brown and tan robes, worn sandals on his feet. Surprising to Tony is that the man is not of Asiatic descent, but instead has deep ebony skin and a shaved head, a goatee that reaches down to touch his chest, with calm, light brown eyes the color of sun bleached desert sand. The man wears a blank expression as he unfolds his legs and rises smoothly to his feet while Tony approaches him from thirty yards away, bow across his back and hands empty.

"Welcome to my home, travelers," the man says with an incline of his head, his expression becoming slightly pleasant. "To assuage your concern," he begins to say, pulling a small pen knife from his belt and cutting across the ball of his thumb. "I swear that no harm will come to you so long as you do not intentionally harm another while you are here, except in self-defense, and that you have safe passage through my lands so long as you abide by that rule."

The air buzzes with the close of the blood oath, and Tony relaxes a little bit, though conscious that there are loopholes in that oath as well.

"Please, remove your packs and come join me for tea," the man says, gesturing to a door to the side and leading them. "I have not had news from the outside world for some time, and would welcome tales of what is going on beyond our mountain home."

Tony and Bagira give up their packs to servants identical to the last, though with slightly different hair styles, and follow the man to a low square table with three settings at it. The man sits on the thin mat in the center of the three, the other two across the table from each other, and Tony and Bagira sit as well, both cross legged. The man nods as a tray is brought with a hot pot of water, makings for tea and small cups. Tony waits patiently as the man goes through the ceremony of making tea for his guests, taking care in the measure of the ingredients and the steeping of the water, recognizing it as a formal dance Aunt A had given him some education in.

When the tea is set before his guests, he pours for himself then nods to the others and they all sip together the hot liquid. Tony refrains from touching the liquid with his own lips, however, as it would cause him sever pain though no injury, due to his sensitivity, instead making a show of bringing it to his lips as though drinking. When he sets the tea down with the others, he notices the man's eyes tighten slightly and a nods his head a slight fraction.

"What is this place?" Tony asks, gesturing to the room and by extension the mountain palace around them.

The man smiles slightly, reminding Tony of his father's own tight smiles, before answering.

"It has gone by many names, throughout the ages," he says with twist of his head. "Nanda Par Bat, Eden, Shangri-La…" he chuckles a bit at the last one.

"We simply call it home," he looks Tony in the eye as he continues. "I find it odd that you do not ask who I am."

Tony thinks for a moment before answering, "My Aunt is a very smart woman, and she taught me that there is power in names, just as there is power in knowledge."

The man nods understanding, "And you do not know if to ask is to offend. You may call me Lee during your stay."

"I do not intend to stay long, I am on a journey back to my home," he says, glancing at Bagira, who is sitting politely and listening carefully, though not speaking the language or having an amulet to translate as Tony does.

"I felt the snap of power as you were brought here by the creature," Lee says with a nod of understanding. "I am grateful that his stain has been removed from the earth. He was a mockery of life, and the world is a better place without him upon it."

Tony nods agreement, "I was lucky to have defeated him."

The man's expression is curious as he studies Tony intently, "I felt magic from another land aid you, even at this distance. I would say that someone thought you worthy of the aid, and worthiness has nothing to do with luck, in my experience."

Tony does not fidget, though an inner part of him that is still a seventeen year old wants to.

"But before you continue your journey I would ask a boon of you, if you will allow me to grant one in return," Lee says.

"I am wary of accepting gifts from those I do not know," Tony says, speaking more formally as the conversation continues. "I had a gift given to me once that I did not fully understand, fortunately without ill results. I may not be so… fortunate, next time."

"I understand," the man says with a nod. "You may deny my boon if you wish, but may I give you my proposal first?"

Tony nods after a moment, figuring he ought to hear the man out.

"Come," Lee says, rising smoothly from the table to his six feet of height, Tony and Bagira doing likewise and following him down a hall to another room, one Tony recognizes as a dojo.

Lee turns and faces Tony in the open area of the wood paneled room, weapon racks arrayed near the walls.

"I would like you to hit me," the man says, standing relaxed on the mat laid out on the floor to cushion it, wooden beams stretching up to the ceiling a few feet from the wall, providing obstacles at the edge of the wide room.

Tony blinks in surprise, "No, that will violate the safe passage."

The man smiles, "Perceptive. I swear this combat will not void my oath, this combat and this combat alone, so long as you lay aside your weapons and allow us to spar, only as men."

Tony feels the thrum of power as the man pushes magic into his words, sealing the oath, and Tony turns and divests himself of his weapons and armor next to the door, telling Bagira to watch them and not interfere.

"I do not trust him," she says, eyeing the man warily.

Tony does not comment, the man would hear and understand, he is sure, and he does not have much choice in the matter, even under the rules of hospitality the man, Lee, has sworn to. The men who found them were practically ghosts when moving, even to his enhanced senses, which would give them a significant advantage in a fight. Plus, he cannot fight the whole world, he has to make peace sometimes, especially when it is obvious his opponent has the upper hand.

Tony squares off across from Lee, ten feet between them and assumes a defensive Mantis stance, the form of Kung Fu he is most proficient with. Lee does not change anything in his relaxed stance as he raises his arm and gestures Tony to come. Less than encouraged by the gesture, Tony nonetheless advances cautiously, then kicks out at the other man. Lee moves the leg he had aimed for, and Tony follows through with a series of punches and chops at the man's upper body and head.

Lee retreats and moves out of the way of the attacks, his arms held loosely at his sides, unraised for defense and his balance perfect as he moves. Tony continues to attack for a few more long breaths before backing off from Lee, his offense apparently useless.

"You are holding back," Lee says, tilting his head. "You could not have defeated the Gurkha's leader if this is your best. Do not hold back, you will not harm me."

Tony is reminded of his father's words the first time they had sparred and with frustration and a little bit of anger, he moves forward quickly to attack again, slowing his sense of time as he does. The first few attacks are as effective as before, hitting nothing but air as Lee weaves and ducks the attacks. After that, though, Lee raises his hands and starts to push attacks away, and Tony redoubles his efforts to land a solid blow. Lee is smiling as they fight, and after thirty seconds of real time, but far longer perceived by Tony, Lee makes his first attack of the fight, plucking the top of Tony's mask between his fingers and pulling it from his head entirely.

Tony is distracted and caught completely off guard by the movement and is disoriented, causing him to stumble. Lee pivots and hip tosses Tony away from him, which he manages to turn into an awkward roll. Tony looks up at the far older man as he rises to his feet, hands held in front of him as Lee resumes an easy, relaxed stance as he holds the mask to the side.

"This is your weakness," he says, dangling the mask by his fingers. "You have a gift of sight that few have ever been granted throughout history. You can see and feel things that no living man can, and has not in millennia. Yet you hide it."

"It's sensory overload," Tony says with some anger and frustration, Aunt A having told him the same a number of times. "The sensations hurt, the sounds, the air. Hell, sunlight burns like fire on my bare skin."

"Only because you run from it, hide from what must be done to master your gifts," Lee says, tossing the mask across to Tony who catches it. "I can teach you how."

"Why would you teach me?" Tony asks, wary at accepting help running deep in his family's blood.

"This place was founded by one such as you, thousands of years ago," Lee says, gesturing to the stone walls that surround him. "It is written that during the Great War that followed the birth of man, a common soldier survived a battle between gods and monsters. Drenched in the blood of the divine, he was bestowed abilities and talents no man could match."

Lee circles the room as he speaks, hands held easily behind his back, "He found that he could not relate to the people he once belonged to, that had raised him, and they banished him from their lands. He came here, to the shadow of the mountain and made this place his sanctuary."

"Who are you, then?" Tony asks, still cautious but curious nonetheless.

"We are like him," Lee says, then chuckles. "We do not have his gifts, but we were shunned, like him, and sought sanctuary and refuge. I came here long ago, from a place called Aksum, a place I will return to, when my time here is done."

"Why should I stay? I still have to get home," Tony says, shaking his head.

"When you enter the mountain, you leave when the mountain decides it's time to go," Lee says with a smile that is beginning to irritate Tony.

"What does that mean?" he asks crossly.

"It means that it does not matter how long you stay here, when you leave, you return to the time you were meant to," Lee says with a shake of his head. "I came here after watching my homeland fall, and as Rome crumbled. When I leave its slopes, the world will be as I left it, and I will walk again as a mortal man, to live out my days."

"Why should I trust you?" Tony asks, wary.

Lee tilts his head, "You have granted me what I asked for, a chance to see if you are more than you appear, which you are. Trust me or not, you lose little to take the chance to learn more."

Tony thinks that over and before he can answer Lee turns from him and heads to the door, "Stay a night, and decide in the morning."

Tony frowns tightly, glad for the chance to talk, and hoping he will be able to reach Maddie to talk it over with.

The sky over the palace is clear in the night, the light of the nearly half moon giving a glow to the landscape below as Tony looks out at it from the room he has been given. He has his own room, a bathroom with plumbing that looks ancient as the Greeks, yet functional as though he were back in Houston. A double bed, couch and furniture before a fireplace and even a stocked liquor cabinet complete the room. This is a better place than he lives in back home by a long shot, the carpets and tapestries thick and expensive looking with great detail stitched into them with care.

He looks at the mirror in his hand again, frustrated that it will not connect to Maddie's, where ever she is on her way to find him. The man, Lee, had said this place is apart from the world, so maybe that means he is cut off, like a pocket dimension or something? Aunt A would have a guess as to what exactly is happening, Dad too, but they are not here, and he cannot reach them. So he has to figure this out on his own, make his own decision…

Tony knocks on the door separating his room from Bagira's, and after a moment she answers it, dressed in a dark red and tan set of the baggy robes worn by the others in the palace. He wears his traveling gear consisting of trousers, shirt and vest all in silk and in dark green and brown, his ghost mask covering his head.

"Morning, sir," she says with a nod, her face pensive. "Did you rest well?"

"No, I didn't," he says with a wave for her to join him in his room, sitting in a chair and she on the couch. "I was up all night, thinking, trying to decide what to do."

Bagira says nothing for a long moment before speaking, "I know that although I am likely a few years older than you, that I am unfamiliar with where you come from, and what… who you left behind."

Tony looks at the dancing flames in the fireplace in silence, the temperature outside having dropped to near freezing in the night, and his thoughts ranging as she speaks.

"The ones who spoke with me, to ask me why I followed you, I asked them if my life was in good hands, safe hands," she says with a frown, a look of shame on her dark features and arched eyebrows.

Tony glances at her, surprised, as he had gone to get water at the time to give some privacy and had not overheard. "Well, I'm sorry I got us into this," he says, he old self glancing through.

Bagira gives him a glance of surprise, then gives him a small smile, "The one called Luang says there are very few in this world he would trust his life to more willingly than you. That you were a noble warrior and will one day be a great leader, in your homeland."

Now Tony is surprised, though concealed by the mask he still habitually wears, "He said that?"

"He did," she confirms with a nod of her head, her black hair tight behind her head, as she often wears it.

Tony takes a deep breath as he looks at the fire, then nods to himself in decision, "Come with me."

"Where are we going?" Bagira asks, rising as he does from their seats.

"First, to that training room we were in yesterday," Tony says, leading her out of his room. "I'm going to give you some katas to practice, then I'm going to find our host, and find out what he's willing to teach me."

Tony enters the room he had first met Lee in alone, Bagira practicing forms and exercises he had shown her to help her learn to fight better. He feels odd, teaching, but he will be safer with a travelling companion who knows how to handle herself better in a fight than she does now. Lee is sitting on the same mat he had the day before, in identical robes and in a lotus position, his eyes closed as Tony approaches.

"I'm ready to learn," Tony says, stopping a few yards away from Lee, his eyes still closed.

Lee opens them with a pleased expression and rises from the mat, "You understand that the learning process may be painful, and difficult."

"Things worth having do not come without cost," Tony says, repeating the words of his father. "I need to learn to master my senses, you can teach me that."

"I can teach you what you need to learn," Lee says, standing before the great window to the west, deep curtains drawn over them, hiding the late afternoon sky. "But to do so you, I must treat you as a student, not as my guest. I swear that my lessons will cause no permanent harm to you, and will teach you how to master your senses. Do I have your permission?"

Tony is takes a deep breath and replies, "You do."

"Remove your mask and your shirt," the man says, gesturing to the garments and Tony complies, laying the clothing on the ground next to him.

"Now, go out onto the balcony, into the light," the man says, gesturing to the curtains.

"The light burns," Tony says as his heart rate rises. "My skin is too sensitive and the sun hurts on my bare skin, more on the scarred side."

"It burns because you have denied yourself the experience of it," the man says in a firm tone Tony recognizes that the Xiang family leader uses when teaching martial arts. "Go outside and embrace the pain, embrace the experience. That pain you feel is not real, it is only in your mind. You must teach your mind to process that sensation as it processes any other, a non-dangerous one that causes no harm, one not to fear and cause pain. Information and nothing more."

Tony grits his teeth and tries to mentally brace himself as he grips the curtains and throws them aside, allowing himself to be bathed in the light of the sun…

Maddie scowls as she looks at the shoreline a few miles away, which is not their destination, and their reason for being here upsetting her a lot.

"Are we sure we can't rig it with what we have on board?" she asks again, turning back to Luang, who had delivered the bad news he received from the Captain.

"He is certain, and is just as unhappy as you are about the predicament we are now in," Lu says with a frown of his own.

"I doubt that," she grouses low, then sighs and looks at the land again.

"The fuel pump for the diesel engine is completely blown, and they need a replacement," Luang continues. "If we continue to sail without one, we will be adrift when tech waves control us, and will eat time as well as put us at risk to pirates and such."

"I get it, it's a necessity," she says with a sigh and turning to go inside to the intelligence section of the ship. "And I've only got the general history of this place, so we're unprepared. Time to change that."

Shortly after they are seated at the conference table in the Intel section's briefing room, each flipping through a folder of documents as a Navy lieutenant briefs them.

"After the Shift, it looked like Australia would fall either to the local wildlife or to China, who went into an expansionist phase for a few years," the officer says, pointing to the map spread out on the table. "Japan managed to hold its own, but China rolled over the fall of North Korea and swallowed up South Korea, pushing north and taking everything up to and including parts of Russia for a while until the Red Army pushed back."

He returns his hands down to the lone continent and the islands around it, "China pushed around Japan, who went heavy on the defense, and started grabbing up islands, which was time consuming, and gave Australia time to sort out the initial panic and the push from the interior of the continent. The Cities took casualties just like every other modern country, but their interior was not as colonized and cleansed as the US was. The locals' magic came back with a vengeance and tried to kick the invaders off their land."

"How did they stop them?" Maddie asks, only familiar with the generalities.

"They made a deal with the tribes, working together against their common enemy, China," the LT says, pointing at the indicated country. "China's invasion failed, and Australia patched itself up as a hybrid country. They are responsible for the first magic engine that runs vehicles, and has made a number of innovations along that line since then, as well."

"Says here the natives keep to the interior, and the Aussies keep to the rivers and coasts," Maddie says, remembering her history and now learning the details, foreign border disputes not something her parents home schooled her on, and the history requirement in Houston was Texas and US history with the only foreign history that of Mexico and Canada.

"We have an embassy and good relations with the government, but getting the parts we need will take time," another officer says, this one the ship's quartermaster, in charge of supplies. "There is a US warehouse, but it has parts for ships of the line, the old wooden frigates we commissioned after the fall, they don't carry parts for the old steel hulled ships like us."

"The civilian docks should have it?" Kris says as he studies the diagram of the parts they need, the tech expert of the group.

"They likely do, but the US government has contracts that have to be kept and we don't carry that kind of money around on the ship," the quartermaster says with a frown. "So we can't outsource it. My best guess from talking on the radio with the supplier on shore is that it'll be a week or so until the parts come in, then time to install, call it two days."

"So we're stuck here for a week and a half," Maddie says with a frown, fighting not to growl.

"Unless the parts show up sooner, yes, ma'am," the quartermaster says. "Captain is dealing with the Embassy right now, wanted me to point out that if they materialize on our deck, he wouldn't ask questions. Also that, in fairness, you could try and get another ship to take you to your destination, and we'd follow behind until our mission to take you there and back is complete."

"Well, I guess we need to go ashore, then," Maddie says with a look to Luang, who twists his head in agreement.

Kris follows behind and to the right of Lu as they ride their Ptactors to the shore, Brisbane spread out below them as they ride the winds. Maddie, Ming and Domasca had been left on the ship, Mad had been preoccupied with Tony being unresponsive to his mirror during the last magic wave, and the others not really needed on a task like this one. They soar on the currents of air over the meeting of land and sea, and the two shapeshifters look down on the city with eyes trained to see different things, but both from a warrior's perspective.

Luang looks down over the shoulder of his Ptactor as he pulls it into a tight bank, seeing the congested city center and the suburbs of residences, farmland beyond it with a low stone wall marking the division from the invading Australians from the native people. Kris sees the division but focuses inside the walls and structures of civilization, quickly picking out a set of landing pads within a few hundred yards of ocean, colorfully feathered flying creatures gazing skyward at him and Luang. He signals what he sees to Luang, who focuses his own attention on it, during which time three feathered fliers rise up from the ground and head in their general direction.

Kris holds his position as wingman to Luang as the other fliers close and fly opposite them in a circle within the thermal they are riding, the riders studying each other from the distance of a couple hundred yards. The fliers differ from the Ptactors in that they have less scale on their bodies and nearly all feathers along their wings, body and a four foot long tail designed like a bird of prey's. The feathers are tri colored, as well, yellow-blue and white on two of them, the third colored red, yellow and green and the largest of the trio, though smaller than the Ptactors.

Luang signals and Kris follows him as they break away from the thermal and in the opposite direction of the feathered fliers' airport, for lack of a better term. The three riders keep their mounts in the thermal as they watch them go, and they glide down to the east side of the city, opposite the airport. They glide in the air, the Ptactors beating the air in powerful strokes every few dozen yards to maintain altitude, and Luang banks them down sharply. Kris follows, seeing that the other man is angling them towards a soccer field being used near a market district. They flare out and bank around, circling the field below twice before Luang brings them into a landing, the children and teenagers playing on the field scattering as they circle and land.

Luang and Kris dismount quickly, reins in hand and jerking with firm words to keep their mounts under control. Kris pulls his Ptactor to the side, off of the field proper, Luang doing the same, and they push the long steel screw-like spiral to the ground and start to turn it into the ground. The four feet of steel sinks in to the last six inches, which is a steel reinforced ring, to which they clip the end of the reins into, having been tested and proven to keep the fliers from taking off. When they are done and the Ptactors' lines shortened to a few feet to keep them from bothering anyone but those dumb enough to come within reach they turn their attention to the small crowd that is now gathered.

Luang approaches them with a tight smile and open hands as he walks towards the two dozen or so locals that have assembled in response to the bizarrely colored flying mounts. Kris hangs back with his hands only raised a foot or so above his waist, actually prepared to quick draw his pair of Springfield XDM .45 pistols if needed. Luang walks up to the lead man, who has brown hair, a naturally light skin that has seen enough sun to darken it to a light honey color and round eyes of European descent.

"This ain't no port, this is a neighborhood, so shod off," the man says with an accent, gesturing with the shotgun held in his hands to the unseen ocean.

"I saw the market from the air, and was hoping to be able to trade," Luang says, pulling open his long jacket and carefully pulling out a heavy pouch that he jangles, clinking sounds coming from it clearly. "I have gold and some silver, if you trade in such. If not, we will go and find somewhere else to spend our money."

The man narrows his eyes and raises his chin in a gesture, "Let's see that you're not making that up. If not, you might be allowed to stay."

Luang reaches carefully into the pouch and withdraws a single gold coin from the pouch, an inch across and an eighth inch in thickness. The man licks his lips and his eyes turn the same disposition Kris recognizes from dealing with customers, someone's easy reason has checked out and greed has taken the wheel.

"There's to be a tax for sitting on our land, mate," the man says with a calculated narrowing of his eyes. "Cost you that there coin, and another just like it."

"A quarter of it now, another quarter when we return, if our mounts are unmolested," Luang counters immediately.

The man snorts, gesturing to the mob behind him with a jerk of his chin, his shotgun held across his body still with both hands, "You might want to re-count your odds, friend. Price just went up to three coins."

Luang makes only the slightest of sounds in his throat, but Kris hears and reacts in a flash of shapeshifter speed, guns out and trained at the crowd. He fires a single round which hits the front of the leader's shotgun muzzle, bending it inwards and causing the man to swear and drop the gun from the shock of impact. Kris has not moved otherwise, his eyes unfocused in general as he keeps one pistol pointed at the leader, the other ranging slowly over the mob.

"Let us be polite," Luang says, having not moved otherwise as he glances at the mob and back at its leader. "We wish to do business, not fight, a fight in which we would likely emerge victorious. And if we did not, many of you would die in the attempt, I assure you of that."

The leader scowls at Luang, a glance at Kris with hatred in his eyes.

"A half piece now," Luang says, tossing the indicated piece to the man beside the leader. "And another half when we return."

The leader frowns hard, then nods, gesturing to the five others in the mob that are obviously part of his gang, the rest simply filled from the local area and not really looking for a serious fight. Kris waits until the mob has mostly dissipated then holsters his left pistol, dropping and catching the mag for the right one. He pulls a round from a loop on his belt, loading the magazine as he steps to Luang's side.

"That was ballsy," Kris comments as he seats the magazine back in his gun and holsters it on his thigh.

"He is the local enforcer, and we will be gone before he can rally his boss to do something, if he can," Luang says, glancing around and recognizing Chinese characters hidden on the street signs and on shop signs. "Besides, he works for the Triads, I recognize their marks," he says, gesturing at the nearest food vendor sign.

"So what's the plan?" Kris asks, his own thoughts on trading for some whiskey and tobacco for the next leg of their journey, as well as the parts needed for the ship.

"We will meet with the Triads," Luang says, walking towards the shop he had indicated. "They are one of the organizations that may have what we need. They or the Yakuza, though the latter is unlikely to welcome us with any ceremony."

"What about local mobsters?" Kris asks, his business dealings almost entirely above board with only some contraband trading while he was in the military and behind him.

"Possible, but that man that confronted us worked for the Triads, he had a tattoo on his neck that marked him as such," Luang says with a toss of his head. "Grandfather was particular to myself and Ming that we be on the lookout for them, as our family has a history with them."

"Good or bad history?" Kris asks as he follows the shorter and younger man into the market.

"Some of both," Luang says without actually answering his question as they walk.

Kris is on edge as he follows Luang into the labyrinth of alleys behind the store fronts, the were-tiger following signs he does not understand to bring them to the center of Triad control. They had stopped at a few stores and Luang had asked some questions in Chinese, which Kris does not speak very well, and led them to the back alleys. They are twenty minutes into the circuitous route when they come into a larger alley, almost ten feet wide and with a large dumpster separated into three sections. Beside the dumpster are two very large Chinese men with shaved heads and long goatees.

Luang leads them to the two men, both of whom are wearing black suits and shirts cut huge to accommodate the three hundred pounds of muscle and fat underneath them. Luang speaks to them, and after a moment of discussion, one knocks on the door and says a single word. Kris follows Luang who gives him a quick set of gestures from his hand, _follow and overwatch_ , in the signals of the Horde.

On the other side of the door is a much older man in his late fifties, with a long rope of hair falling over one shoulder and traditional silk robe on in red with yellow and black trimmings. Luang bows his head as the man bows and gestures down a hallway, leading them into what looked like a two story wood and brick building from the outside. The interior is paneled wood and brick with some rice paper screens for walls as they walk. They turn right after a dozen yards or so of narrow hall, past a dozen of the screened doors to a lobby where they stand and wait as the older man goes to a door and speaks within.

Kris follows Luang as they enter a large office that is decorated with a large mural against the far wall that depicts what he judges initially to be a depiction of a battle from a few hundred years ago or more until he notes the modern rifles mixed in with the armor, swords and spears of many of the soldiers. Behind the desk is a man Kris presumes is Chinese, and he is incapable of guessing his age except to know he is at least thirty, but no more accurate than that. Black hair cropped short with carefully curved eyebrows over the dark eyes of most descendants of Han have, his frame spare and moving with the grace of a fighter. He wears a black jacket and pants typical of martial artists and businessmen alike, the Mandarin collar edged in white, as is the buttons along the front. The man has risen with a small smile on his face as greets Luang, the meaning of the words lost on Kris as Luang sits in the only seat provided, Kris simply standing guard behind him.

"You come on business?" the man says as he picks up his tea, having had it served as they made small talk, a servant dispensing it to both men.

"I have," Luang says with a nod, politely taking a sip after his host. "My companions and I are travelling with a US Navy ship which has had the misfortune of having its diesel pump break, and is in need of replacement."

The man nods, setting down his tea, "And you knew that even as _gwai lo_ s, you would have a better chance of finding your needed part, than with the local gangs."

"Only two of my party are _gwai lo_ ," Luang says with a nod of understanding, the term Chinese for 'outsider' in a less than polite demeanor, though technically meaning 'white ghost'. "And I understand that the Tongs have great reach and resources, particularly in the Pacific."

The man shakes his head with a small frown, "You misunderstand, you are all _gwai lo_. Your accent is clearly from America, you are no longer a true descendant of Han, you are nearly as barbaric as they are."

He gestures to Kris behind Luang with a long fingered hand, "You have given the secrets of our ancestors to these heathens, and think yourselves Chinese. You are wrong."

"I presume that means our business is concluded, then?" Luang says evenly as he keeps his own outrage below the surface and hidden.

"No, it is not," the man says as he raises his cup to his lips to sip again. "But it will be a more complicated matter than you had planned, I believe. Send your mongrel back to your ship, and tell them I have the part they need in stock, which I do, as I am familiar with all ships that enter our harbor. If they wish for the part and for your safe return, they will give me the secret to creating the flying beasts you arrived in."

Luang raises his cup to his mouth and sips it to buy himself time, then sets the cup down with a deep nod.

"My clansman is on the ship, may I write a note to convey your offer, so that it may not be lost in a verbal exchange?" Luang asks with a deferential nod of his head. "I shall use Mandarin to ease your mind that no code is being used."

"That is acceptable," the man says as he nods to a servant to the side, who has pulled out a scroll, ink and a narrow brush.

Luang uses the brush to write down the message conveying the man's proposal and blows over it to allow the ink dry, his personal mark on the bottom. The man examines it and nods his approval, at which the servant rolls it up and seals it with a dot of melted wax and hands it to Kris.

"Take that to the ship, Madden," Luang says without looking back at him. "I shall remain and enjoy tea from my most gracious host."

Kris nods hesitantly, but turns and follows the old man back to the entrance and to the alley beyond.

Tony steps off the enchanted slopes of the mountain, feeling the ever present flow of magic he had grown accustomed to fade away, his natural magic reserves all that remains in the world gripped by tech. He looks behind him after a few steps, the upper slopes of the mountain he had descended covered in fog, only Bagira visible a few steps behind him, wrapped in robes as he wears his traveling leather armor. They continue north into Tibet, where Tony hopes to be able to use the ley line highway through China to reach the coast faster than walking. He is also eager for the next magic wave to come, so he can speak to Maddie, whose photo is faded, old written letter of love illegible and her voice a distant memory.

Maddie frowns at the desk in the intel briefing room as Ming finishes translating the note Kris had brought back to the ship that evening. He would have been back before noon, but when he'd returned to the field, the Ptactors were gone, stolen, and he knew better than to try to take on a whole gang by himself. He'd paid a bicycle taxi to take him to the wharf, where he'd searched out and found the small boats sent out from the Navy ship to bring stores back aboard.

"The wording is code," Ming says, looking up. "The translation loses something, but the last phrase is unmistakable."

" 'I trust Michaels' judgement completely to settle this matter'," Maddie repeats, her being the ranking member of the team now that Luang is captured. The phrase means that whatever she wants to do, he doesn't doubt her.

"We don't actually have the full spells needed to make a Ptactor," Kris points out. "They used fossilized Pteradactyl bones and other fliers from other species to fuse and create the first two during a concentrated magic wave. Then they mated and accelerated the egg development and tweaked the genes from there for size, disposition, intelligence and what not."

"The first few got too smart from what I remember," Tim says from where he sits to the side, rubbing his head as he dredges up the memory. "The Khan had to hunt them down in Pegasus Way before they got out of control."

"Well, I'm less than pleased that he's decided to kidnap one of our team as well as dictate terms," she says with a scowl at the note. "We're rescuing Lu, taking the engine part and getting our birds back."

"Easy to say," Kris says with a tight frown. "What's the plan?"

"Kris, you'll be on overwatch of the meet, load the .50 Robar," Maddie says, barking out orders. "Ming and I will do the exchange, and Tim, you take Trixie for a swim with the other Ptactors. On my mark, you crash the party."

"I don't know what that means," Tim says with a frown and a shake of his head.

"You will when you see it, and so will Trixie," Maddie says with a firm nod. "Magic's got the world now, get your gear, we're taking a boat aboard and going to arrange for the exchange on the next tech wave. Get moving."

Maddie walks into her quarters, Ming behind her and pauses as she realizes that the mirror that connects to Tony is activated and his face is staring out of it. Maddie grins as she rushes over to it, the rest of the problems of the moment forgotten as she notes his clean shaven face and trimmed hair, faded up from the sides, the left side of his face completely unhidden and baring the kaleidoscope of rainbow colors.

"You clean up good," she says with a smile that reaches her eyes. "What is the occasion?"

"Speaking to you," he says in a tone she can only describe as wistful, causing her to dim slightly and become worried.

"Is something wrong?" she asks, her brow creasing in concern.

"No, nothing is wrong," he says with a shake of his head. "It's just… it feels longer than a few days since I've talked to you, that's all. It's great to hear your voice, it's amazing."

"Sweet talker," she teases him.

He smiles warmly at her, "I love you so much, Maddie. I miss you."

"I love you and I miss you, too," she says with a sigh of her own.

"I've been wondering something recently, and wanted to ask you," he says, leaning forward in the mirror some.

"Shoot," she says, tilting her head and curious as well now.

"You used to dye your hair wild colors, back before we dated. Why did you stop?" he asks.

She sighs with a frown, "Aunt A reminded me that I was going to be under a spotlight with Clan Wolf, and that hot pink or neon blue hair doesn't convey maturity well."

Tony frowns at that and tilts his head one way then the other as he thinks that over for a moment before responding.

"I guess that's true, but it wasn't your appearance that got you through the Agoge or the battle afterwards," he says with a shake of his head. "Your competence, skills and abilities did," he reasons with a shrug. "You fought for your place in the Clan not with your hairstyle but with your superior fighting ability and how you lead your teams in a fight. If someone thinks you're less because of your hair, as some have done already, then that's their problem for miscalculating you. Your actions and character speaks for itself, I think."

"My man, the poet," she says to him with a smirk. "I'm lucky you're mine."

"I'm lucky you'll have me, though I often wonder why," he responds playfully with a smile.

"Because you're my mate, that's why," she says with a grin, blowing him a kiss.

"How's the trip coming?" he asks, changing topics.

"We ran into some problems after the storm," she says with a frown. "We're in Brisbane where we're getting a part for the ship. Ran into some… negotiation problems getting the part we need. I'm going ashore to clear it up."

"Ah," Tony says with a slow nod, understanding what she isn't saying. "Well, I think I may be able to help with that, actually."

"What do you mean?" Maddie says, confused.

"I picked up a few tricks on the mountain," he says without answering the question. "Close your eyes," he says, and she reluctantly does so.

"Now, you remember what the daggers that came with your vest look like," he says softly in a nearly sing song voice, and Maddie nods wordlessly. "Picture them in your mind, make them clear as day in your vision, the carefully sharpened edges, the gleaming and smoke like character of the blades, the intricately woven handles, and the solid bone of the pommel as they rested in your hands."

Maddie has kept her eyes shut as he spoke and does as he says, picturing one, then both of the long daggers laid out on the table before her, her hands resting easily on her thighs as her breath comes easily and relaxed, much like when she meditates.

"Now keep that picture in your mind and focus on it, push out all other thoughts, all other distractions, until only the daggers and my voice remain in the void that you have made within your mind," he says soothingly, and Maddie focuses on the image in her mind.

She hears Tony say a few phrases in a language she doesn't understand, then she feels a sudden pop of air and the scent of ozone as magic slaps against her with the sharp crack of breaking glass. She opens her eyes as the mirror she had been looking at Tony with shatters and falls to pieces, but surprising as that is, the presence of her two Viking daggers lying on the table in front of her astonish her more. Somehow Tony had sent them through the mirror to her with magic, and she blanks on how that is possible.

She makes a note to ask Ming about it later, as well as get another mirror to create another spell to communicate with him again, annoying but not an impossible or very difficult task for Ming. She grabs her twin daggers, spins them and flips them in her hands to remind herself of their balance and feel then sheathes them behind her back with a flourish, glad to have them with her again.

"That was brief," Bagira says as Tony tosses the small mirror to the side, the pieces scattering among the ashes of fire they had put out to continue their journey.

"Sounded like she has a mission ahead of her, and they were hers to begin with, I just got them back for her," he replies with a dismissive gesture.

"The next village is next to a monastery and guard fort, according to the map," she says, glancing at the leather map they had acquired while on the mountain.

"There's no telling what century that map is from, so we'll just have to see what is there," Tony says with a shrug. "Remember, no one had been there since the Shift, as far as anyone knew."

"You learned more of that than I," she replies, the both of them speaking fluent Mandarin, neither using a charm to do so. "I was challenged enough to learn the forms you all set before me, and to speak Mandarin and to start learning to read it."

"I promise you'll thank me later," Tony says with a smile as he pulls a leather half mask from next to his pack.

He ties it in place with a strap across his neck and high on his forehead and down to his back collar, covering only the scarred half of his face, a colored and clear crystal over his left eye to allow him to have his full vision unimpeded. The dark brown mask is one of two he'd gotten while on the mountain, he is not ashamed of his scars, but he recognizes that they make him stand out in a crowd, since they glow with magic at all times. With half his face covered, law enforcement and military shouldn't bother him for trying to hide his identity, and he can claim it is a disfigurement from a fire, a true enough statement.

He has a few things of value from the Lich's castle, mostly gold coins or small silver bars, which anyone will accept with few questions as to where it came from, whereas the dozen small jewels he has will illicit far more questions as to their origins. He hopes to get horses in the village and ride until they can get into civilized Chinese territory, at which point he plans to use their Ley line transportation system to get him to the coast. The gold should cover travel and expenses with much to spare, if he's not mistaken, not to mention any misadventures he may encounter along the way.

He smiles as he looks at the morning light peeking through the clouds above and shining down on the bare side of his face, basking in its warmth for a moment before returning to breaking camp and continuing their journey. From his current location he has around 2,500 miles to travel before he could reach Hong Kong in the south, or over 3,000 miles if he goes to the north on a direct line towards Shanghai and Japan beyond. _And the journey of thousands of miles begins with a single step_ , he reminds himself as he shoulders his pack and takes another step closer to reuniting with the woman he loves.

Maddie smiles grimly as she rides along the docks outside of Brisbane, dawn coloring the sky to the east. The mission is no simple matter, essentially a double cross at the exchange of Luang and a trio of scrolls Ming had imbued with a halo of magic but no information. The ruse should pass cursory inspection at a distance and allow them to get closer to the Triad leader or whomever is doing the exchange. She has a wagon behind her for the ship part they should be picking up if they need it, Ming on the bench beside her, and they pull up to the base of a pier on their right, an open loading area thirty yards across and fifty yards deep in front of them with a warehouse on their left.

Maddie sits and waits, her .454 rifle back on the ship with her revolver, a Springfield XDM 4.5 inch 9mm on her thigh instead with magazines tucked away for it. Dawn peeks over the horizon and from around the far corner of the warehouse fifty yards away comes another wagon, followed by two more, each with six armed men on them. They are all Chinese from what Maddie can see, with AK47s or other similar weapons, no body armor and with a green sash tied to their upper right arms, probably denoting their allegiance.

"Eighteen tangoes, small arms, no BA," she says softly into the whisper mike on her throat, to which the rest of the team clicks over the radio in response.

On the front bench of the lead wagon is Luang, who makes a gesture unseen by the driver of his wagon, and Maddie nods infinitesimally at the signal. _Equipment present, animals elsewhere_. That means the engine part is here, but they have the Ptactors somewhere else, which is fine with Maddie, one less moving part right now.

"River, this is Blue Hand, I have visual on south side tangoes, some cover and concealment issues with targets on north side of convoy," Kris radios from where he is on a crane four hundred yards east and fifty feet over the water with his .50 caliber Robar, a round designed to kill aircraft fired from a gun that is accurate out past a mile with a trained shooter, of which Kris is highly trained.

Maddie clicks her radio in acknowledgement, the targets he can't see on the side closer to the warehouse, not unexpected.

She drops the reigns to the four horses they had bought earlier, all guaranteed by the previous owner not to spook, run or shy no matter what they smelled or heard, having worked with shapeshifters but lacking the temperament of warhorses. Maddie grabs the sack from the back of the wagon, what is supposed to be their payment of gold to complement the scrolls Ming is holding as they dismount the wagon.

Maddie walks forward towards the man who had dismounted from the second wagon, dressed in a traditional black Chinese suit with light brown wooden toggles for buttons. The man is in his late forties, and Maddie can tell from his movements that he is a martial artist, his hair braided into a thin rope coming over one shoulder and down his front. The man has on a short square hat and round glasses perched on his nose. The man frowns tightly at Maddie and Ming, obviously finding working with a pair of women, one a mere girl, distasteful in the extreme.

"You have the instructions and the gold?" the man asks, tilting his head and looking down his nose at the two of them with unrestrained disdain.

"Actually, no," Maddie says as she upends her sack and lead bars clang to the ground. "But nice hat," she comments, and before any sound can erupt from his open mouth to speak his head disappears as a single round from the .50 destroys his entire skull in a spray of blood, meat and bone.

Ming has dropped the scrolls and is moving to the left at an angle while pulling the 9mm Vector sub machine gun from her back and starts to fire at the guards. She reaches cover after dropping three of them, the rest ducking for cover or returning fire as she turns behind a barrel of grain. She pulls a grenade from the back of her belt and pulls the pin, tossing it over her shoulder to land near the area between the wagons and the warehouse. Instead of exploding, a cloud of tear gas, used to disperse crowds, sprays out and makes the area between the convoy and building an unwelcome place.

Maddie has fired her pistol one shot at a time as she sprints for her own cover, a pair of crates with food stuffs in them. Rounds from the guards ricochet around her and one hits her hard in the ribs, knocking the wind from her as she falls behind the crate, noting another round has cut open the back of her left arm. She drops the magazine to her empty pistol and holds it over the cover and blind fires at the guards who are now controlling their fire, keeping their heads down and starting to move towards her.

"Blue hand, status?" she asks, dropping a magazine and loading another, the unaimed fire intentional to make them confident and exposed to fire from behind.

"Toss a flashbang about twenty meters in front of your cover, I'll take care of those closest I haven't got yet," he says calmly from his perch, the sound of his rifle in the background.

She pulls the smaller grenade from her belt, pulls the pin and tosses it quickly, the timer on those much shorter than with regular fragmentation grenades. The bright flash of light and 170 decibels from the small grenade disorients the approaching guards and causes them to stumble from their cover, making them easy work for Kris.

"Reloading," he calls over the radio, and Maddie bounds from cover, her electronic earplugs mostly protecting her from the sound damage of firing her gun and the flashbang.

Maddie fires two rounds into the chests of four of the guards as she moves to the first wagon, then firing at the second wagon to keep the guards hiding behind it down from her suppressive fire. She drops the magazine and loads another as a guard pops up from behind the second wagon to shoot her, but is thrown forward from behind as another guard is tossed into him. Maddie simply places a pair of rounds in each and moves forward to find that Luang has a pair of broken handcuffs dangling around his wrists and is twisting the last guard's head into an unnatural position.

"Status?" he asks, dropping the body and stepping over it while looking for any remaining guards.

"Stand by. Blue hand, status?" she asks, placing a hand to her throat to indicate she's speaking on the radio.

"No one moving," he reports. "I didn't see anyone rabbit, but if you guys would check the scent trails to make sure, I'd appreciate the confirmation."

"Inara, check to see if anyone managed to escape," Maddie calls, to which Ming clicks once to confirm and moves to the back of the convoy, Kris watching from on high.

"We are clear," Ming says. "No survivors and no one escaped. Sirens are closing in."

"Let's get these wagons with the parts to our boat, before they decide to close the dock," Maddie says, pointing Ming to the last wagon, Luang to the second and she jumps in the first one.

After a few moments to ensure no bodies are on them, they snap the reins and the spooked horses trot down docks to the pier a half mile away where a Navy crew is waiting for them.

"The Tongs will not take kindly to this double cross," Luang says from his own wagon as they move.

"We'll close that chapter later tonight, after we drop these loads off," Maddie says over her shoulder loud enough to hear. "They crossed us first, and we're going to show them why you don't cross an Agogite."

Richard rides his horse at a trot down the cobbled road leading to the front gate of Asgard, the NeoViking capital outside Houston. He has four guards with him as he rides, two ahead and two behind, all five of them in armored vests and with assorted weapons with them. Richard only has his sword, a few knives and a pistol on his hip as they ride, having been sent a message from Odin to come. He had been hesitant to leave Tasha, but she had accepted Mischa's presence well and he hopes what he is seeing is recognition in her eyes. His hurt at the apparent loss of her memories is buried deep as he tries to carry on his duties as Khan and now responsible for a large swath of land. If it were not for Mischa soothing Tasha while Autumn and Stanislav work with the doctors to find out what happened, he'd lose his mind.

He rides through the open gates, having seen his approach and opening for him ahead of him. His expression is grim but he waves to the guards, known as the Heimdall Guard, who call to him as he passes with raised weapons in salute. He continues down the street through the stone and timber buildings that make up this growing city that is expanding further north and west.

Reining in before the short castle in the center of the city and dismounts, fighting to remain balanced without using his right hand. Rather than hide the fact he had kept the stump bare in the light of the morning. Richard strides up to the castle and once through the antechamber is surprised when a guard motions him and his own men to follow him not to the throne room but down a set of wide curving stairs. They descend for what he estimates is three or four stories, striding down an increasingly warm hallway past heavy wooden doors with iron rings for handles.

The guard pushes open the thick door at the end, revealing a high ceilinged smithy filled with the sound of hammering, sparks flashing and a red glow emanating from a dozen forges in the very large room, easily fifty yards across. Richard walks across the forge to where he finds Odin sitting on a stool by a waist high work bench, a chisel and hammer in hand as he bends over a steel gauntlet. Richard pauses short of him and nods his head in greeting to the Norse All-Father.

Odin snorts with a half-smile and looks down at his work again as he finishes etching a rune onto the surface of the metal, "You come just in time. I was just finishing up."

"Finishing up what?" Richard asks, narrowing his eyes at him.

"Recompense, for sacrificing your arm," he says, blowing away the metal shavings, running a callused hand over it with a nod.

He hefts the gauntlet and shows it to Richard who inspects it with a raised eyebrow. It is a muted red and black metal, with plates and woven metal at the joints to allow flexibility as great as normal with the tips looking to have leather as well as along the palm and pads. It is not large, but smaller than normal gauntlets, it looks to probably be made for a teenager or someone not having reached their full growth as the hand and fingers are no larger than a normal person's fingers…

"Is this functional?" Richard asks, surprised, looking at Odin squarely now.

"Let us find out," the grey bearded man with a twist of his head, stepping forward and placing the solid socket on Richard's arm.

Richard blinks in surprise as the metal touching his arm is warm and he feels a connection to it through the sixth sense he's developed since he found out he has magic. The gauntlet has connected to his aura, and pulled magic from him, which he doesn't fight as the ghost sensation of his hand becomes real instead of a phantom. The socket cups around his forearm, not seamless but almost naturally, and as Odin releases his grip on it, it remains in place. Richard bends his arm and raises the hand to study it and after a few moments of thought and concentration the fingers flex for him.

"It will be more taxing to use in a tech wave as it will draw from the magic within you during those times, though it will be automatic when magic is in the world, if my enchantments hold," Odin says, wiping his hands on a rag and standing up, his green Carhart jacket over another stool nearby and wearing a plaid flannel shirt and jeans.

"Thank you, All-Father," Richard says, bowing now in gratitude.

"I should give you gifts more often, if that is what it takes to get a bow from you," Odin says with a bark of laughter. "Come, tell me of your wife and mate. How does she fare?"

"She's… awake," Richard says as he follows Odin from the heat of the forge down the hall to another door in the hall. "It took her a minute to remember me… to recognize me, I should say."

"I presume your sister and her paramour are attempting to divine what caused this in her?" he asks, opening the heavy door which leads to another set of stairs they descend.

"Yes, but until the magic returns, there is not much they can do except try and comfort her and keep her and others safe," he says with an unhappy frown.

"I would advise that your sister not be present when you discuss your wife's condition," Odin says with a glance over his shoulder with his good eye, a heavy leather patch over the other. "She shook the Tower Builder's grip on her in aiding you, but he is not one to be put off easily, especially by a mortal, and she stills bears the staff, which marks her as the progenitor of dragons and still connected to him."

"She won't like hearing that, but I can't argue with the logic," Richard agrees, looking around at the open room they have entered at the bottom of the stairs, another pair of stories down.

"I have news you must hear, though I know we shall argue the course forward," he says waving at room and the three occupants.

The room is thirty yards across and circular with a domed roof and no other entrances or exits, a stone built well in the center that is knee high with the water level visible at just over the height of the floor. Surrounding the well is a dozen feet of dirt and sand rather than the finished stone bricks that comprise the rest of the room and hallways under the castle. Around the well are three women, each beautiful and striking in their own way, one with raven black hair and a sharp nose, one with bright blond hair and a strong jaw, the third with fiery red hair and a gentle round face. The woman with black hair has a pitch black robe on with a silver chain around her waist, the blond woman has full scale armor on with an axe on her belt, the red headed woman with what looks like the green robes of a healer.

"The Norns," Richard says without prompting as he looks at the three women. "What have they told you?"

"Nothing, as yet," Odin says with a frown of his own as he looks at them. "None of my queries are answered, nor those of my son. They have not spoken since they came down here from the streets of Asgard. They manifested during the last wave from throughout the city and wandered into the castle and here, every door opening for them as they came."

Richard approaches them cautiously as the three women peer back at him with steady, even gazes that make a chill run down his spine. As he does, Odin beside him, his thoughts are interrupted as they step onto the dirt and sand the three women stand on around the well.

"The new ancient and the old monarch are now gathered," the three women speak as one, startling both Richard and Odin.

Richard can feel magic rising from the well and moving around the three women, like mist rising from a lake at night, fragile and soon to be burned away.

"Are we destined to repeat Ragnarok?" Odin asks, the same question he had asked before.

"The world exists in cycles," the one with black hair says, her voice firm and lacking emotion.

"As the magic once left and then returned," the warrior clad woman says, her own voice strong and unyielding.

"As the weather turns, and life becomes death, death becomes life," the healer says, her voice gentle compared to the others.

"Doesn't exactly answer the question, does it?" Richard says rhetorically to Odin with a frown.

"Death cannot be avoided, just as life cannot," the three speak again as one.

Richard frowns at the women, "Not a no, but not really a yes, either."

He steps back from the dirt back onto the stone floor, Odin stepping with him after a thoughtful look at the trio of women.

"You're right, we're going to argue about this," Richard says with a frown at the Norse god. "You know as well as I that they will speak partial truths and give no certainties. I will not change my ways or my plans because of what they say."

"They speak of the future, how can I ignore that, if it may prevent the loss of all I rule?" Odin asks with a shake of his head. "I must ask, and attempt to divine the meanings of their words."

"Do as you must," Richard says with a shake of his head and a shrug of his own. "But I will not sit and wonder, I will act."

"I am wise enough to know I cannot make a tiger change its stripes," Odin says with a shake of his own head and a sigh.

"Aptly put," Richard says with a nod, turning to the door and leaving the Norse seers with their god.

Maddie looks over the saddle across Trixie's back at Luang, both of them wearing tight forming goggles to protect their eyes from the wind whipping about the flying mount. Kris is to Maddie's left, Ming to Luang's right, all four are hooked to the saddle with carabineers holding onto the full harness they wear. Each has pistols strapped to their thighs and a bag hanging in front of their hips with their primary weapons stowed and waiting to be drawn and used.

Maddie is wearing a long sleeved black and grey striped military blouse and cargo pants with black on black Converse All Stars, as does the rest of the team. After returning to the ship with the parts needed, the Marines on the ship had assisted them as they donned the harnesses and packs across each of their backs, steerable parachutes, and then checked and double checked to ensure they had strapped everything in place properly. They had then strapped themselves to the sides of Trixie's harness and saddle while Tim Domasca had mounted and then taken off, flying the wyvern in a slow ascent to rise above the low cloud cover in the late afternoon light.

They had risen into the sky out at sea, away from prying eyes of the port that could only identify that a single flier had taken off, not what it carried or where. Now out of sight and concealed from the ground, Tim had flown his cargo back over the city and they soar over it, pinpricks of light leaking through the now spotty cloud cover in the night. Maddie glances up, her head covered with a light ballistic helmet and earpieces to conserve her hearing when the shooting starts and allows her to hear the radios they are using, the rest of the team similarly outfitted.

"This is River, all call signs, radio check," Maddie says after waving to the group and indicating they turn on their radios.

"River, Jayne, checking in," Kris says from beside her, his voice clear over the radio despite talking sub-vocally.

"Inara, checking in," Ming radios.

"Book, checking in," Luang says over the radio, this being Maddie's mission, planned while he was captive.

"Loud and clear everyone," Maddie says with a nod. "Unhook on five, and jump in sequence on my mark," she says, glancing over the back of the wyvern, the long tail swinging gently back and forth as the dragon labors against the wind with her heavy load.

"Ten, nine, eight," she says, her voice even and measured, betraying no fear as she looks down over ten thousand feet at the city of Brisbane below.

The tech is still up, and they had packed their equipment for that as well as for the contingency that it should crash and they would be using melee and enchanted weapons. Ming is light on firearms, having only a pair of pistols, her med kit and magic equipment for that contingency, while Kris and Maddie had packed primarily firearms and a few blades, Luang had packed a 9mm submachine gun and his blades, preparing for all contingencies. The parachutes will work regardless of tech or magic ruling the world, though the altimeter that will tell Maddie how far they are from the ground as they fall is digital, and will fail if the tech crashes. If that happens, she'll have to determine direction to target and altitude by eye, which is difficult but possible for a skilled jumper.

Problem being, everyone on the team are rookies, this insertion method had only been discussed as a possibility between her, Luang and Richard before leaving Houston. She and Luang had actually jumped once before with less gear, and Maddie had pulled out the manual from the ship's library and gone over the particulars with the Marines on board, though none of them have ever actually done it themselves. Maddie tries very hard not to think about all that, though, instead looking for the key locations she can pick out on the ground, specifically the line of the coast and the music hall that is lit up.

"Seven, six, five," she continues her count unabated, even and cool despite her own rising tension as she pulls up with one hand to relieve the pressure on the carabineer holding her onto the saddle.

With the D shaped, spring loaded hook undone she pulls herself up and braces with her feet against Trixie's side, Luang and the other doing likewise in preparation for the jump. Her heart is racing faster than ever as she bunches her muscles with stored power.

"Four, three, two, one…" she finishes counting down while shifting position, one final breath to steady her nerves. "Mark."

Maddie jumps off the back side of Trixie and falls with arms and legs spread eagle and bent as she picks up speed while plummeting towards the ground. She counts to eight while holding what the books call a "box position", which keeps her from tumbling and allows her to make minor corrections to her descent angle. She glances behind her and notes that the other three are in a line upwards and behind her, following her lead, just like they'd rehearsed on the deck of the ship.

Turning back to her front she passes a low hanging and thin bank of clouds, after which she marvels for a moment how much closer the ground seems than it had a few moments ago when she had been on Trixie. She violently shoves that distracting thought away, Rick having mentioned that if you lose focus for even a second on a jump like this you could end up as a smear on the ground. She checks her altimeter and then her orientation against the landmarks, adjusting her course minutely to keep them on target, a rooftop in the heart of the Tong territory. She checks her six again and confirms everyone made the adjustments and turns back to check her altimeter again to find that they are rapidly approaching the altitude to deploy their chutes.

The ground seems to rush up at them, but she only glances at the ground and back at her altimeter, pulling on the deployment tag firmly once she hits one thousand feet above ground level. The chute pulls out with a soft tearing sound and the adrenaline rush she thought couldn't get any higher does as she thinks her chute just tore free. A brief moment later she is jerked hard against her harness and she is swinging free over the ground, gently floating down towards the ground. She reaches up and grabs the two steering strap handles and angles towards the rooftop ahead and to her right, their target, and her mind is assessing the three targets looking down at the alleys and streets below, oblivious to the threat descending upon them.

The two sentries look down at the street below, the neon lights of the bars and small casinos of downtown Brisbane flashing up at them as they scan the crowd milling below for the team of _gwai lo_ that had attacked their gang earlier that day.

"Hey," the one on the right says, adjusting the strap to his AK47 that hangs on his shoulder, his hand on his hip as he glances at his partner beside him.

"Yeah," the other says, also in slang Cantonese.

"You ever wonder why we're here?" the first one asks, waving at the city in general with the burning blunt in his hand, taking a puff of it before handing it to his buddy, the marijuana a homemade blend.

"Why are we here?" the other man asks rhetorically for a moment, nodding and taking a hit of the blunt and handing it back.

"It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it," he continues, blowing the smoke out and looking at it while he does. "I mean, are we the result of some kind of crazy, mystical, cosmic accident… or are the gods up there real? With a plan for us? I am not sure, but it does keep me up at night."

The first man stares at the second for a long moment, "What was _that_? I meant why did we get this shitty posting, instead of inside the club."

"Oh," the second guard says, blinking.

"What was all that shit about gods and stuff?" the first guard asks, looking at the other with narrowed eyes.

"Nothing," the second one says, waving it away and glancing back on the roof to the other guard on the far side of the building, watching the back.

"Want to talk about it?"

"No, no," he replies, trailing off and shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably.

"I mean really, why up here?" the first guard asks again. "We have machine guns on the roofs at the edges of our territory, none of their fliers will get close without being spotted. And the _gwai lo_ will stick out like a cow in a herd of sheep down there."

He waves at the predominantly Chinese crowd below, this the heart of their part of town.

"I-," the second starts to reply but is unable to finish as his head jerks to the side, a bullet having smashed through the back of his skull.

The first man stares in shock for a moment and turns back towards the roof in general in time to meet a second bullet that cracks through his skull as well, sending a mist of blood and bone over the edge to fall unnoticed onto the crowd four stories below.

Maddie holsters her silenced 9mm pistol and pulls the releases on her harness to allow the chute to fall behind her on the roof. She wraps and gathers it quickly while glancing around and confirming the other Agogites have landed and are doing the same, none having lost control of their chutes to warn the crowd or those below. She had killed the two guards at the front and Kris had taken care of the one at the back, and she'd guess they have one to five minutes before a check in will be missed. Her chute packed up and shoved near an air vent with the others, they open their gear bags and start arming up by pairs, the other two watching the roof as they do.

In less than a minute all four have their load bearing vests with ammo and gear in place with their primary weapons ready. Maddie nods to Kris, callsign Jayne for the mission, as they both drop the bolts forward on their AR style weapons. The two rifles are .50x45mm Beowulf, firing a 400 grain bullet that only has a maximum range of 150 yards, but the heft of the bullet makes it lethal even to Level III body armor. Weapons ready, Maddie leads the team to the door to the roof, Ming at the rear with her pistol out and ready, Luang behind Maddie and Kris behind him.

Maddie opens the unlocked door and heads down the stairs, rifle at her shoulder and ready, the heavy caliber round unable to be silenced, so once she fires they will be very known, and their enemies will definitely be surprised.

Xing Mau cracks the whip at the man strung up in chains against the wall of the basement, blood spraying from the flick of leather across his back, blood oozing down his bare buttocks and legs. The man had planned and dispatched the exchange for Luang and the parts in exchange for the plans for the flying beasts. He would have preferred to give the punishment to the man who had been in charge of the task, but he had his head shot off by a very large caliber rifle at the failed exchange. Even more infuriating is that there was no blood or evidence of the ones who had done this with the exception of trace scents left behind, which only indicated two female shapeshifters.

If he hadn't taken the other two fliers, both of which are unfortunately male, he would have been even more of a loss for the endeavor, suffering from the loss of the exchange plus a dozen of his security men and one of his lieutenants. He cracks the whip a final time, the man no longer sobbing and simply hanging from the chains holding him. He hands the whip to one of his guards to coil and put away, accepting a short knife from him in return. He moves to the barely conscious man and reaches up, pulling the pinky finger of his right hand out and putting the blade to it in preparation of cutting it off.

He stops and looks over his shoulder as gunfire comes from overhead and he mentally curses while maintaining the same calm and cool expression he had used with the foreigner earlier. He had increased security throughout his area of control, has solid steel doors on the ground and heavy bars across all the windows, it is impossible for this to be the _gwai lo_ , it must be a guest in the club that security must deal with. That conclusion quickly is dispersed as the first pair of rounds are joined with softer sounding shots that sound more panicked, and he remembers that this room had been partially soundproofed to allow him to conduct enhanced interrogations without disturbing the rest of the building. For the sound of those gunshots to come through so clearly means it must be from a very large gun.

"Find out what is going on," he says, motioning to a guard, then the other two with him. "We are going to the safe room."

Maddie pauses at the intersection of the hallways, Luang behind her, and she moves into the hallway on a knee looking left, the right the end of the hall, and Luang stays standing to fire over her. They both fire as there are four guards rushing down the hall and the combined fire of the heavy rifle round and the fast small arms rounds cause them to practically dance in the hall as blood and meat splatters the walls.

"Reloading," Maddie says, remaining down as she flicks her magazine out while pulling out another ten round magazine and inserting it, running the bolt forward.

"Moving," Luang says as he walks around and past her with still half his magazine full, advancing down the back hall of the first story of the building.

Maddie rises back to her feet with her rifle ready ahead of Kris and behind Luang, her face a hard mask. They'd encountered light resistance on the top two floors they had managed to eliminate without their primary weapons and minor presence on the second floor, mostly clients that couldn't get out fast enough once the gunfire had started. The guards have now started to come and they leapfrog each other as they need to pause to reload, her and Kris swapping out more often as they have fewer rounds per mag, though the bullets they fire are devastating.

Now pausing at the door which is the back entrance to the main floor Luang holds up his hand and the group halts in the hallway.

"I smell him, the man who held me," he says, transmitting over the radio. "Fresh, with blood mingling with it, someone else's."

"Follow it," Maddie says, logging the scent with her own nose so she can track it as well.

They pass the main floor's door and move to the door at the end of the hall, and Luang kicks it open, button-hooking left as Maddie moves strait at the far corner, Kris moving into the middle space in the center of the room. The room is a large office, the same that Luang and Kris had been in before, but there is no one here.

"Clear one," Lu says.

"Clear two," Maddie adds.

"Clear three," Kris confirms.

"Rear clear," Ming says as she keeps guard on the door.

"Jayne, watch the door with Inara," Maddie says, scanning the well-appointed room.

"He was here only moments ago," Luang says, starting to search.

Maddie pauses in the center of the room as Luang looks around and the tech suddenly drops from the world, magic rising up to replace it. She shifts her rifle to hang from her vest, now useless, and she continues to scan the room.

"Book, Jayne, door, Inara break out your kit, there's a ward here somewhere he's hiding behind, break it," she orders, Luang moving to where Kris is at.

Maddie collects Kris' rifle and his empty gear bag he had brought with him, dropping her modern gear into the bag with it. As she does this Ming has pulled open her own pack and pulled a pouch out, taking out a handful and blowing it into the air. The green powder floats then moves to the wall behind the desk, sticking to an invisible field a few inches from the wall in front of the complicated tapestry.

"Concealment," Ming says as she walks to the tapestry, an old styled writing brush in her hand.

She dips the small brush in a small vial of specialized ink and writes in the air the green dust has collected in, three Chinese characters glowing there now. She speaks a pair of phrases, pushing magic into the words and the powder drops from the air and the tapestry flutters from an unseen wind. She speaks a word with a wave of her hand and the tapestry falls to the ground, revealing a concrete wall with a steel door embedded in it.

"The lock is mundane, I can open it, but it will take a few minutes," Ming says as she studies the lock.

"We've got company coming," Kris calls from the door, his modern gear dropped just inside and out of the way, a battle axe held easily in his hands. "I can hear a half dozen or so, a couple turns up the hall, talking over how to storm to this office to the boss' safe room."

"Jayne, Book, go out and dissuade them from bothering us," Maddie says, to which Kris grins and jerks his head at Luang. The two hurry from the room with melee weapons in hand, Lu with a pair of Chinese twin swords with long handles that were sheathed within each other a moment ago.

"Move, I've got this," Maddie says, pulling the twin daggers from her back, each one longer than her hand.

She moves to where the hinges are located and shoves the blades into the steel like a hot knife into butter, tearing down with one blade then across with the other. The metal makes a moaning screech as it is rent open from the blades as she cuts all around the door's edges until it's nearly completely cut around. She takes a step back then with a three step lunge she kicks out and slams the door with a front kick, shoving the heavy door through the frame to tumble into the other room.

Xing Mau stares at the door to his safe room, a sparsely appointed area with a small cot, a fold out desk, toilet and sink in a concrete room only twelve feet by twelve feet. He has a large safe in the basement with valuables in it, only a small wall safe here in this room, enough for him to escape and travel back to China if necessary. He has two of his guards with him and they all stare in surprise as the tip of a green colored blade is shoved through the four inch thick steel and sawed around as though cutting through cardboard. They wince at the sound of the tortured metal as the blade cuts each side raggedly until the door is hanging in the frame.

He flinches and throws an arm over his head to protect it in the corner off the room as the door flies into the room violently, bouncing around and smashing one of the guards, crushing his right shoulder and arm. The door falls heavily and lands on Xing's lower leg, pulling him to the floor and eliciting a brief shriek of pain as he grabs at his leg. The other guard looks to him then back at the door, but the surprise of the door's movement and the hesitation means that as he looks up a small figure is already moving into the room with superhuman speed.

Xing Mau nearly misses what happens next through the haze of pain in his mind, a manager and a calculated businessman, not a fighter or warrior. The small figure, a girl about five feet tall an absent part of his mind notes, has moved to his guard and shoved a nearly foot long piece of dark green dagger into the chest cavity of the guard. She hasn't paused in her movement but turned and spun with speed and grace no human could duplicate, a shapeshifter for certain, as she pirouettes away from the dying guard to move to the other crippled guard and slice down with an identical blade in her other hand. The slash nearly decapitates the already mortally wounded man, the entire time from her entry into the room to her finishing move so fast that he would have missed it had he blinked.

As he blinks now, he realizes she is staring at him after having killed his guards faster than it would have taken him to have thought of giving a similar order. In a normal situation he would bargain or attempt a bribe to buy his freedom, perhaps even beg for mercy in the name of honor or even as a professional courtesy. The look in her eyes, despite the obvious youth of her facial features, causes any words he may have had to die in his throat, unspoken. She isn't looking at him as a normal person would look upon another, he sees no hatred or anger in them, nor a sense of any kind of desire or need as he has seen some of his own men long for a fight or a kill. No, she looks at him as though he were merely an object, a thing to be taken care of or dispatched, and he knows that he made a mistake in crossing her, as she is truly a _gwai lo_ , a white devil.

Maddie walks back into the office as she flicks the blood from her blades absently, the job done, and sheathes them while nodding for Ming to follow her.

"Jayne, Book, extract to the roof," she calls out loudly, getting curt shouts of acknowledgement from where she can hear them scuffling down the hall.

She moves briskly back the way they had come, stepping over the bodies and pleased to note that Lu and Kris have finished their fight and are moving quickly to where she is on the second floor. They all emerge onto the rooftop together, and Maddie points Ming to open center of the roof.

"Do your spell, Wash should be here shortly," Maddie says, then looking at the others. "Pack up and prep for pickup."

They all quickly retrieve the chutes they'd arrived in, already bagged up in nylon designed for that when they landed, and clips them and their bags with gear into place. Ming closes a magic circle on the roof that thrums with power as she speaks a long spell, then pulses with a green light and surges outward, creating a circle that encompasses most of the rooftop. She rises and Maddie helps her into her own harness quickly and as she is putting her gear bag back on a large shadow descends and lands on the roof with a blast of wind.

Trixie flaps backwards to steady herself, Tim on her back, then leans down as the Agogites swarm into place on her back. Once mounted Ming speaks a series of words, the green glow of the circle shrinking and wrapping around Trixie and her passengers. The effect is evident as a large, two man crossbow mounted a pair of roofs away fires at them and the bolt shatters into splinters against the protection afforded by the magic. Trixie roars at the crossbowmen, who abandon their post upon seeing the lack of effect of their weapon, and she beats her wings hard as she rises into the night sky.

Tony tilts his head in thought as he thinks over the vendor's offer, then nods and hands over the ten gold coins they had been haggling over. The trip to the village and outpost had been a bust, the structures that remained having been abandoned for years, probably over a century. They had continued for another day down what used to be a road but was now a faint trail with overgrowth, finding a village with a messenger way station at the small river, a wheelhouse and mill there for the surrounding countryside. Tony has just finished bargaining with the man over the exchange rate for the gold, having had to walk away twice before finally settling on a rate he finds acceptable.

The man counts out the coins and their denominations, Tony mentally tracking what each is worth as the vendor does. Once they are all laid out on the table, Tony pulls out the long piece of 550 parachute cord and runs it through the center hole of each coin, then wrapping the long stack of coins around his neck then under his shirt and out of sight. He takes the shorter stack remaining and places them in his pouch on his belt, jerking his head for Bagira to follow him further into the market.

When crossing the mountain he had worn the leather armor he had acquired at the Lich's castle, but during his descent from its enchanted slopes he had worn it less often. Here on the lower ground below the soaring mountain range to the South the temperature is warm, as the season is summer and he dresses accordingly. He wears a dark green silk pair of long shirts, dark brown silk pants of a common, local cut, and the same round toed dark brown boots he'd left home in. The boots are worn and will likely need to be replaced by the time he gets home, but they are still serviceable. As an understanding of protection he has leather armor sleeves layered up to his shoulders in a dark brown, strapped in place across his chest and back.

He still has a quiver of arrows across his back, a mix of his specialty arrows mixed with mundane ones, his kurki strapped to his right thigh and a slightly curved short sword on his left hip. His bow is in a compact form, the handle evident with a curved arc across the front where the knuckles would be, small protrusions that resemble teeth sticking out. His time on the mountain had allowed him to test and experiment with the weapon and find that there were a total of three forms for it, spear, bow and this last, more compact version.

Bagira still wears the robes she'd started wearing while training on the mountain, tan and dark brown in color and loose fitting cotton. She keeps her hood up and her face wrapped to conceal her features, only her eyes revealed. If she were alone, she might have been questioned, but travelling with Tony means that most assumes she is either his servant or his woman. She has a heavy pack across her back, larger than Tony's, so most assume she is a porter carrying his stuff and he is her employer. The assumption that she is a slave is discounted as she has a heavy broadsword on her hip and a dagger at her side as well.

"Let's check that way station and see if there is a convoy or a carriage or something we can book a ride on," he says as they walk, his head moving back and forth as he maintains awareness of his surroundings.

He sidesteps a young boy, eight or so, who swerves and bumps into him. Tony easily holds the young boy by the wrist and holds out his other hand with a frown and a tilt of his head. The boy swears low under his breath and hands back the pouch he had stolen from his belt. Tony accepts it then gestures again with his fingers and the boy groans in frustration, opening the hand Tony grips, revealing a pair of coins. Tony takes the coins and releases the boy, who disappears into the crowd quickly.

A few minutes later he walks through the front door of the station, Bagira waiting outside. The guard on duty looks up from a thick book where he is carefully writing a report in, giving Tony a look over as he approaches. He frowns but says nothing at the half mask covering his face, noting the scars on the exposed right half and guessing a disfigurement marks the other side.

"Hello, traveler," the guard says with a brief nod of his head. "You are a merchant, seeking the silk road?"

"More or less," he admits with a wave of his hand. "I am looking to travel eastward, to the coast. Is there a convoy or some such going that way?"

"Only messengers, this far south," the guard says with a shake of his head. "Main route is further north, along the ley line. Wild country between here and there, better to follow the road until it meets up with the ley line, to Lhasa, then travel from there."

"How far is Lhasa?" Tony asks, thinking over the map he has.

"Six hundred miles," the man says, gesturing east. "There is a bus company on the north side of town, you may be able to book passage with them."

"Thank you, sir," Tony says with a polite bow and leaving the small room to find the mentioned company and get moving again.

Tony sits in the corner booth of the tea house, his back to the wall and facing the room, Bagira sitting across from him watching the rear entrance. He's not aware of anyone currently hunting him, but old habits die hard, and his father had emphasized that sometimes an enemy comes out of nowhere. Having experienced that exact thing happen with horrible results he is more than willing to be cautious to the point of paranoia. He is carefully drawing Chinese and Celtic symbols along the edges of a small mirror about four inches across with a small brush and special ink he had bought earlier today with the mirror.

The ink dries fast in the high, arid air, the country having a higher altitude than much of the surrounding regions, and the countryside a high, dry plateau. The entire region is sparsely populated, less so than before the Shift, when there were 800 or so villages in the region, but now there are just over 400. Many villages were deserted and the refugees moved to other villages, and in the intervening years the population had grown to about the same it was before the Shift, but concentrated more along the slopes of the Himalayas and along the main road leading to the capital.

They had purchased transport along with a convoy of foodstuffs being shipped to the capital, their fee lessened as Tony had convinced the guard captain that they will chip in for defense if needed. The convoy leaves early tomorrow morning, so they will finish their meal and tea, then go get lodgings across the street from the stables that the convoy is staying at. Their tea is steeping in front of him as he finishes the design on the outside ring of the circular mirror, then carefully puts away the brush and sealing the ink before tucking it away as well. As he finishes this, a young woman comes out with their meal and Tony thanks her as he sets the mirror aside to finish drying as the young woman sets out their food then leaves them alone.

"It is good to be travelling again," Bagira says with a look around, trying not to stare. Before meeting and travelling with Tony, she had lived her entire life in her own small village among the animal-weres there. This small city is a shock to her, as her only other experience with human structures and groups was the mountainside, which was far different.

"It is," he agrees with a nod, sipping his tea before beginning his meal. "What do you think of the city?" he asks, knowing her background and hoping she isn't too nervous.

"It is very odd, that everyone is so close together," she says with a frown and a shake of her head. "But even so, it is amazing that you make such things, that they are so complicated and built on top of each other. Though the smell is atrocious."

"Unfortunately, you get used to that," Tony says with a grimace of his own. "I grew up in small town, smaller than this, and my Mom along with other family members and friends home schooled me until I was much older."

"Where else would you learn?" Bagira asks with a frown of puzzlement as she picks up the chop sticks next to her large bowl of food.

Tony pauses in lifting a dumpling to eat, remembering that she has limited access with larger societies. He chews slowly, thinking, before answering her.

"In most human communities we have a central location that all the youth go to in order to learn, we call them schools, or education centers," he explains, trying to allow her to understand. "You learn with others of the same age, and after your eighteenth birthday or so, most societies consider you an adult."

Bagira frowns as she hears this, "That is a long time to take to grow up. Do all humans grow so slowly?"

Tony blinks and understands that though they've talked, they've rarely had an in depth conversation, and he realizes that although he knows her, there is still a lot of blank space he hadn't realized.

"How old did you think I was, when we first met?" he asks, curious now.

"I knew humans grew slower, I guessed you were ten or so," she says with a shrug.

"I was, am, seventeen," he says with a twist of his head. "I'll actually be turning eighteen in a couple months. I didn't start attending school like most of the kids my age until I was fifteen, dropped out when my mom died last fall and searched out my father, who I thought was dead."

"I'm sorry to hear about your mother, sir," she says solemnly with a nod.

Tony frowns reflexively, internally glad she isn't as formal as she had been when they started travelling together.

"It feels like a long time ago, now," he says, picking up another dumpling to eat.

"I finished my schooling by taking tests and was declared a legal adult in my home country a few months ago," he says after finishing the dumpling. "My girlfriend, Maddie, did the same. It's kind of how we got together."

"She sounds like a very capable mate," Bagira says with a nod between bites as she eats.

"That is an understatement," Tony says with a smile. "One you will probably fully realize when you meet her and see her in action."

"I hope I do not disappoint you when that happens, as your student," Bagira says with a nod of her own head.

"Even now that still feels odd," Tony says with a slight shake of his head.

"I will be glad when we are out of this place, it is far too big and crowded," she says with an uncomfortable glance around.

Tony snorts with a smile, chuckling as he says, "The other places we stop will be just as large. And we will be travelling through some that are a hundred times larger and even more crowded, by far."

Bagira stares at him, her face blank, "Are you joking at me?"

"I do not joke," he says with a smile and shake of his head. "We will travel through a city that will have a million people in it. The city we will sail from will likely be larger still. And the city I live in back home is that large as well. Millions of people living close together."

"Millions," she says slowly, her head wrapping around the concept. "I do not understand. That is larger than a thousand, is it not?"

"It is a thousand thousands," he says with a nod, and she blinks, trying to comprehend that many things.

"That is… unthinkable…" she says, trailing off as she continues to try and wrap her head around it.

"Don't focus on it, just give it time to sink in," he says, finishing his dinner.

After a few moments of pause, she shakes her head and finishes her own, larger, plate of dumplings and mutton over a bed of rice. Tony sips his tea as he pushes his plate away, the serving girl coming and taking it away, allowing him space to pull the mirror back in front of him. He checks the runes on the edges, nodding to himself that he marked it correctly. He packs away the mirror and tools then pulls out his pouch and counts out coins as the serving girl approaches with a slip of paper with handwriting on it.

He pays for the meal with a tip then he and Bagira leave to go to their lodging for the night, waking early to catch their ride east.

Richard is sitting at his dining room table, Tasha across from him frowning as she looks at the picture book in front of her, Mischa and Jocelyn sitting to either side. She wears Horde sweatpants and a loose t-shirt of Richard's, Mischa in a loose pair of pajama bottoms and top, Jocelyn in shorts and a sleeveless pink shirt. Jocelyn has pink highlights braided in her hair, Richard is realizing it must be genetic with those two, and is smiling as she points to pictures in the book and names them, coaxing Tasha to do the same. Mischa is beside her coaching and helping her along while Richard watches with a forced smile as he tries to keep up appearances for Tasha's sake.

"House," Tasha says, speaking slowly as she points to the building on the page.

"No, barn," Jocelyn says with a shake of her head, but smiling.

"Barn," Tasha says with a frown and a furrowed brow.

She is learning quickly, but it is still frustrating, not being able to communicate with his wife and mate, not knowing what exactly happened to her. Autumn and Stan had checked on her, but there seems to be no residual magic on her, only her own naturally strong aura, and if there's any lingering effects it's been washed out on the M-scan. She seems to remember things, though, and once she's able to speak better, maybe she'll be able to explain what happened from her perspective.

Richard turns as steps approach from the yard, Autumn opening the back door and entering the kitchen with a frown on her face. She freezes in place, however, as Tasha is not looking at the pictures anymore, but at her with a focused expression, like a cat that is focusing on its prey. Richard makes a soothing gesture to her, knowing that any scent similarities he may have had with his sister have been weak and distant over time and with his becoming a shapeshifter.

"Richard, can I talk to you outside?" Autumn asks, glancing at him for a moment, then back at Tasha. "It's about Maddie and Tony."

"Maddie," Tasha repeats, still looking at Autumn, her gaze turning more intense and she starts to rise from her seat slowly. "Tony," she says slowly, recognition in her voice, looking now at Richard.

"I'll take care of this," he says with a soothing tone and gesture as he stands. "Learn, speak," he says, gesturing at the book and then at his mouth.

She growls her frustration with an angry frown and sits down again, apparently understanding as she turns back to the book and points angrily at a picture, "Horse."

Richard accompanies Autumn out the back door and onto the back porch, staying under the overhang as it is raining lightly outside in the dark of night. They circle around the fully wrap around porch to the front as they talk, Autumn pulling off her grey cloak and shaking the water from it.

"Maddie called," she says with a pensive expression. "I came over as soon as we finished talking, Atticus is at the shop in case they call back."

Richard frowns for a moment, "What is it this time?"

"They got held over in Brisbane, Australia, had to get a part for the ship," Autumn summarizes, not the part of the story she's worried about. "They handled it in true Agogite fashion. No one seriously hurt, they'll be sailing in the next day. Tony called Maddie and sent her the twin daggers through the link."

Richard pauses in step as that registers, turning to look at Autumn, "I didn't think we could send anything through the mirrors, just talk."

" _I_ can't," Autumn confirms with a worried frown. "Neither can anyone in town, and I'm not sure who would be able to do it, or how."

"He has a lot of power, so maybe it's just a function of pushing more power into the spell?" Richard reasons, frowning in thought.

"I can't do it if I used the staff to amplify my power, which would be twice as much as Tony could focus," Autumn says, confirming his suspicion. "And it takes a lot more finesse than Tony has. He's only started learning real magic theory and application with me and the Xiangs. He uses a lot of notes when he does spells and has to re-write his glyphs, he was messing them up half the time before he left."

"I remember you mentioned that he'd first used sharpie on the mirror twice before etching in the markings when he first called us," Richard says with a sigh, rubbing his head now. "What does it mean?"

"I don't know," Autumn says worriedly. "He's your son, and I'm sorry, I'm worried he's made a deal with someone to boost his skill level."

"And something like that is unlikely to be cheap or without consequences," he says, a topic the two of them have talked about constantly, what with the threats posed to their family and the Horde regularly, and what it takes to protect it all.

"He just finished crossing the mountain, I'm guessing?" he asks, looking at his sister.

Autumn nods, "And Maddie said that he shaved his beard and has a military haircut, as well as what she thinks is tanned skin on his unscarred side."

Richard ponders that for a moment, "He's been getting sun."

After a moment, Autumn chimes in, "Sunlight on his bare skin hurts him. He describes it as though touching a hot stovetop, painful but not damaging."

"Developing a tolerance to that is a good thing," Richard says with a nod of his head, but still frowning. "But you're right, tolerance like that doesn't come in a few days. We should probably try and reach out and contact him."

"Maddie said much the same thing, reluctantly," Autumn says with a nod. "Her mirror shattered when the daggers appeared and she hasn't reconstructed her mirror, yet. I'll make one that will make that connection in the assumption that Tony will make another for him, presuming his broke when he sent the daggers as well."

"He's a good kid," Richard says, reassuring her with a tight smile. "He's definitely a better man than I was at his age."

"Different," Autumn corrects him. "You tried very hard to be a good man at that age, too, remember."

"I can't forget," Richard says with a shake of his head. "How long to set up the connection?"

"I'll do it back at the shop, then call from there," she says with a tight expression. "Come over around dawn, once the magic is up I'll be able to enchant the runes and activate a connection."

"I'll see you then," Richard says, giving her a quick hug then returning to his cabin and the family there.

The ship's Captain hides his nervousness while looking over the rail of the steel hulled ship as the smaller boat approaches, a dual engine cutter from the Australian Coast Guard. Technically speaking none of his crew has done anything remotely illegal, having put no one ashore except a pair of supply crews who drew supplies and returned to the ship with it. His passengers, on the other hand, are considered foreign nationals to the Australian government and were undoubtedly involved in less than reputable activities last night. Yes, they explained they were simply conducting a training exercise further out to sea, and yes, that is the way he watched the wyvern fly last night before he lost sight of it among the clouds. But…

He signals the COB to ready a greeting party, who appears from below deck, certainly assembled the moment the craft was spotted heading in their general direction. Just as he is certain the two squads of Marines on board are gearing up to repel boarders if it comes to that. Unlike the time just before the fall, although the US and Australia are considered allies, their ability to influence the other across so vast an ocean is diminished since the Shift. And since the first time a man sailed upon the seas, the Captain is law upon his own ship, and must maintain it as such.

The smaller ship pulls alongside the small battleship, bobbing slowly in the waves, compared to the much larger military boat that crashes through the relatively smaller waves with slight recognition. The magic turbines are churning away below and powering the ship's propellers and other equipment needed for sailing such a large heavy ship. The mundane engines are being worked on by his engineers, and once complete they will leave sight of land and continue their journey, as long as they are not detained somehow by the port authorities.

The shrill notes of the boarding whistle sound as the small rubber skiff from the other boat disgorges its passengers up the ladder run over the side and an Australian sailor stands on the deck. A bit over six feet tall, lanky with a sun worn face and wrinkled eyes used to staring at the horizon, the man looks to be in his forties with finger length brown hair cut in a bowl on his head and an Australian Captain's cap on his head. His uniform is khaki with a gold leaf pinned to his collar, marking him as a Lieutenant Commander, an equal rank to his own, as well as a ship's Captain in his own right.

"Captain Johanson, requesting permission to come aboard," the man says in a cheery Australian accent, his upper lip sporting a bushy moustache that matches his hair.

"Permission granted, welcome aboard, Captain," he replies. "I wasn't expecting a visit, to what do I owe the honor?"

"Had a bit of a scuffle downtown, unexpected trouble," he says as they walk along the rail of the ship, circling past the bow. "Thing is, the tensions in town aren't that high, things were quiet. Then yesterday there was a gunfight along the docks in broad daylight. An anonymous source said they saw some folks leave the scene with wagons and meet up with your supply team, load some equipment and return to your ship."

"We did take on supplies yesterday," the Captain replies, feigning ignorance. "We had to buy from a civilian dealer, outside of our normal supply chain, as the parts we needed for our diesel engine were not in stock at our warehouse."

"Do you have the name of the company?" Johanson asks, eyebrows raised questioningly.

"I'll have my quartermaster provide it before you disembark," he says, glancing at one of the sailors walking nearby and giving the order.

"There's another thing, quite odd, really," Johanson says with a frown and an expression of consternation as they stop just over halfway down the side of the ship now, pointed towards the rear of the ship. "We have some flying beasts that belong to the small Azteka outpost here, representatives of their shipping interests, but they're silhouette is distinctive and locals readily identify them on sight."

The Captain waits as the Australian officer sighs with a look of confusion, theatre for what he is saying.

"The scuffle downtown, it was a targeted strike against one of the local gang lords, the Chinese folks that manage their dark dealings in the area," he says with a shake of his head. "The local police were baffled, called on the local military unit to take a look at it. Damn if they didn't say it looked like some sort of Special Operations unit came through the club in a textbook raid."

"What did they take?" he asks dutifully in the pause as they resume their measured walk toward the stern and the helipad there.

"Thing is, they didn't take anything, left piles of bodies, looks like thirty to forty, including the local gang leader, a very influential member of the local community with ties in Hong Kong," Johanson says with another shake of his head.

"Mysterious, I can't argue, but it sounds like they may have done the area a favor, if they were criminals," the Captain says with a shrug.

"More mysterious still is that it started suddenly, no one saw them appear, and as you know the tech was up for most of last night," Johanson continues as they slow their walk. "In fact we know that just after the magic came back up there was a flare of light from the building in question's roof, and a flying beast was spotted descending and then leaving the scene."

"The Azteka's?" he asks, knowing it's not but playing his part.

"As I mentioned, a familiar form, even at night, and this was much bigger than any flying beast our people had ever seen, a true dragon from the few reports we've seen," he says with a shake of his head.

"You've seen the few fliers we have, they're not much larger than the Azteka's, and lack the tail of a dragon for sure," the Captain says with a toss of his head.

"There was a report of a flying beast taking off last night before dark from your stern, but with the overcast sky, no description," Johanson says, eyebrows raised questioningly.

"We have non-military passengers, and the fliers, called Ptactors, belong to them," the Captain says, gesturing to the stern and leading him there. "Shapeshifters from Texas, their leader is trying to broaden his trading horizons, they're on fact finding mission of the area and they are along for the ride."

As he turns the corner to show the landing pad that was once meant for helicopters he reveals the five shapeshifters in question. Luang is leading the group in a slow kata as all five wear matching sweatpants and t-shirts with the symbol of the Horde on them, a roaring tiger head in red. Maddie is most noticeable as her hair has been dyed a dark purple color in a cascading effect and styled up one side of her head in a series of braids. Ming is less noticeable with her dark red dyed hair only because she is shorter and standing a bit behind Kris' large frame in relation to where the two Captains stand.

"Miss Michaels, may I have a moment?" he calls, and Maddie drops her pose with the others to join the Captain.

He is mentally surprised at the change in appearance, as the young girl grins at him as she flounces up to him, dimpling prettily as she stops short of them.

"What's up, Cap'n?" she asks cheerily, her brown eyes nearly twinkling in the daylight.

"This is Captain Johanson, from the Australian Coast Guard," he introduces the other man. "He says they have reports of a late night flight last night. I know you flew out last night, and he wanted to ask you some questions."

"Miss Michaels," Johanson says with a polite nod. "Can you tell me what you were doing last night on your flight?"

"Well, the Ptactors have been cooped up a lot, and they need their exercise," she explains with a smile. "I couldn't sleep last night and when I walked the stalls two of them were fidgety, so I saddled one up to take for a ride, maybe try to night fish. They've got raptor genes in them, the bird of prey kind, and in calm waters they can stoop down and pull out pretty big fish."

"I see," Johanson says, frowning in thought. "It was overcast and dark last night, how could you see the fish?"

"Ptactors don't have problems with the dark, they see in it almost as good as day," she says with a shake of her head while still smiling.

He pauses and asks with a curious expression, "How old are you, miss?"

"Sixteen, I'll be seventeen this fall," she replies, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Hmm," Johanson says with a thoughtful expression, looking from her to the others still performing the slow, meditative dance on the platform.

"Thank you for your time, Captain," Johanson says with a nod, shaking the other man's hand then turning and leaving to return to his boat.

When he is off the boat and away, the Captain turns back to Maddie, whose face has returned to that of a hardened veteran of combat.

"I notice you didn't tell him the truth," he remarks.

"I would pass an oath test with what I said," she replies coolly. "I went fishing, and it was successful, though we didn't bring our catch back."

The Captain nods agreement with the phrase.

"I hope you didn't have to lie yourself on our behalf," she says in return.

"No more than you did," he says with a nod of his own. "Being a ship's Captain you learn that sometimes you need to dance around the truth in order to keep sailing."

Tony rouses from sleep as magic surges into the world, the energy within him spiking in response, waking his senses and stretching them out even further. He pauses to take a few deep breaths to steady himself, his heartbeat rising at the increased input and he controls it quickly. He sits up on the thick mat he has for a bed in the room he and Bagira share in the small Inn near the overnight lot that the trucks for the convoy are using.

He rises and moves to the corner, Bagira raising her head from her own bed and lying back down when she identifies the movement as him. He pulls out the mirror he'd prepared earlier and chants under his breath, pushing magic into the runes and closing the circle around the frame. A flicker of light and mist rises from the surface, revealing the face of his father and Aunt A, not Maddie as he had hoped it would.

"Hey, dad, Aunt A," he says with a smile, hiding his disappointment.

"Tony," Richard says with a nod, Aunt A beside him with a worried expression in what looks like Aunt A's shop, light in the background indicating it's daytime there.

"Tony, I need to ask you some questions," Aunt A says pensively, glancing at Richard, his face relaxed and blank.

"You want to know how I was able to send the daggers through the mirror, and how I'm more tolerant of the sun," he says without waiting for her to continue.

"Well, yes," she says, surprised, though Richard only raises one eyebrow fractionally.

"You are going to hate the answer, though it's not the one you fear," he says with a tight expression. "I can't tell you how. I can't give you hints, either, and though I could lie to you about it, I won't. We're family and I won't do that to you."

Autumn frowns, frustrated and she starts to say something angrily, but Richard places his left hand on her arm, stopping her from speaking.

"You _cannot_ tell us. And you _will_ not lie," he says, clarifying.

"Yes, sir," Tony says with a nod of his head. "I need you to trust me."

"Done," Richard says without hesitation and a firm nod of his head. "What can you tell us?"

"Ascending the mountain, before we reached K1 and K2 we were ran down by Ghurkas. I assume Maddie told you about my first encounter with them?" he says, shifting in his seated Lotus position.

"Yeah, heard they broke your sword," Richard says with a frown and shake of his head. "Damn shame, but better a weapon and not you. She said you'd kept one of their kurkis. Did she mention that probably wasn't a good idea?"

"Yeah," he says with a tight expression and a nod. "Hind sight is 20/20 and all that."

"How did the second encounter go?" he asks, Autumn next to him listening.

"A larger group, with their clan leader with them, the father of the man I killed and whose kurki I kept," Tony says with a frown. "I won't get into details but I fought them one on one, goaded the leader to fight me after a few fights so I wouldn't be burned out."

"I assume you won?" Autumn asks, glancing sideways at Richard then back at Tony.

"Check this out," Tony says with a smile, acting more his age as he puts the mirror on the low table and holds his bow in front of him as he slides back away from the mirror to allow them a wider field of view.

He pushes magic into the bow and it elongates into the black bladed short spear, dark green accents along its shaft. After a moment to turn it and allow them a look, he pulls magic from it and it returns to bow form, then he surges again differently than the first time and it compacts into the smaller configuration.

"I tried pushing magic into the string to use like a burning blade like I would with a sword or dagger and it turned into the spear," he says, setting it to the side and moving closer to the mirror again. "I fiddled around with it and figured out how to make it into the smaller form."

"Useful," Richard says with an appreciative nod. "What happened after the fight?"

"I had cut open the leader's face, across his nose, but didn't kill him, tried to convince him I wasn't his enemy, and that the guy who hired him was," Tony says with a shrug. "He surprisingly listened, in part because I mentioned that my father, you, fought beside his people in the past. He gave me his son's blade to keep…"

Tony pauses, uncomfortable with the next part, "For good or bad, I then mentioned my father's name was Anthony Hessberg. He said he fought by your side, and that you were a good soldier."

Richard smiles tightly, "That old goat's still kicking, huh? How about that?"

"Sounded like he might start resisting the Indian influence, too. Time will tell," Tony says with a shrug.

"What else can you tell us about your trip?" Autumn asks, obviously annoyed at not being told something, but grudgingly accepting it.

"We're in Tibet now, we leave with a convoy of 18 wheeler hybrid trucks that leave in a few hours, heading to the regional capital," he explains, glancing out the window at the night sky. "From there continue East, haven't decided whether to go to Hong Kong or to Shanghai, which is much farther."

"I hate to say it, but go to Shanghai," Richard says with a frown and shake of his head. "Maddie had a run in with the Chinese mob in Australia, and it turns out the Xiangs' influence in old China is not what they believed it was. Local authorities of any type are not likely to be cooperative."

"I've got a map now, and we'll hit a ley line once we get to Lhasa, which should speed things up, as we'll be able to follow it continuously most of the way to China's coast," Tony says, outlining his plan.

"It will mask your presence as well," Autumn points out. "Whoever has Claimed that land magically won't be able to detect anything in the ley line but the ley line, the magic is too strong. As long as you're travelling that way, they won't know you're there by magic means."

"Well, going the average of fifty miles an hour or so, with almost two thousand miles to travel, that's two days of just movement," he says with a shrug. "Not bad time, but we'll have to get off of some lines and get onto others, hopefully without running into trouble along the way."

"As much I wish you could get home faster, safely travelling is more important," Autumn says with a grimace.

"It's not as bad as all that, Aunt A," Tony says with a shrug and shake of his head. "Bagira's learning to fight pretty well now, so I'm not watching everything all the time anymore. We'll get an old car to roll into the ley line and go until we can't go anymore. If we have to, I have gold and silver, we can exchange and pay for a ride on a coach or whatever they have for a transportation system here."

"Talking of crossing a continent like it's nothing," Autumn says with a disapproving shake of her head and a glance at Richard, who is smirking.

"He did travel halfway across one to see me, and that was before training and special weapons," Richard says with an approving look at his son. "Be as careful as you can, son. I love you, and look forward to seeing you."

"I love you, too, Dad, Aunt A," Tony says with a tight smile of his own, cutting the connection.

Tony looks out at the rough, high plateau around them as he and Bagira sit on top of the back cargo container of an 18 wheeler, the second in the convoy of eight. Sharp hills stretch out all around them for miles and miles, proving that much of Tibet is uninhabited except for shepherds. He has seen about a dozen herds of sheep and goats as they travel, with heavily armed shepherds on small ponies eyeing the convoy with caution as they drive by on the barely maintained roads. Now Tony understands his father's disgust with third world roads, he thought Mississippi's roads were bad, these are horrible in comparison.

It's early afternoon now, and the countryside is starting to become forested, temperate forests of firs and other green leaved trees as they continue east. As the sun dips in the west towards twilight Tony can see that there is a city up ahead, larger than the others they had driven through or left behind. He nudges Bagira beside him and points ahead, to which she turns and looks at it with a frown and focused expression.

"Is that…?" she starts to ask, but trails off.

"The regional capital," Tony says, leaning back on his pack that is strapped down to the top of the container. "A quarter of a million people live there, from what I understand. That is two hundred fifty thousand, all living in close proximity to each other, just as tight or tighter as that small town we left behind."

"Two hundred and fifty…" Bagira says with awe in her voice as she stands and continues to stare at the distance, difficult due to the moving platform they sit on and the speed of the convoy.

She is still boggling over the number when her gaze catches on the large, wide structure rising in the center of the city, discernible even at this distance to normal people, her own vision able to pick out details. A palace of white stone and red roofs resides on a large hill in the center of the city, hundreds of windows around it and multiple levels of roofs as well as wide staircases rising up to the main entrance above the street level. Bagira stares at it in wonder, struggling to believe what she is seeing.

"Amazing," she breaths into the wind, nearly lost to their passage but Tony able to hear it. "I did not know men could build such things…"

"It didn't happen overnight, but men did build it, and it has stood there for centuries," Tony says over the airstream as the convoy continues to approach the city.

Tony smiles as he glances around at the area again, noting that he can see the occasional Chinese military outpost in the distance, meaning the likelihood of being hijacked has dropped as they near the city. He's making real progress now, closer to home, but more importantly, closer to Maddie, to his love.

Maddie sighs and takes a breath of sea scented air as she looks out from the prow of the boat, now underway and cutting through the South China Sea towards Tokyo, Japan. Dawn is on the horizon and she's hoping that the tech wave crashes soon, even if it means a short time to restart the magic engine and a loss of speed. Ming had finished the mirror and she'd gotten a call from Aunt A about what he'd told them about his time on the mountain, which aggravates her. He should have told her that something happened, even if he can't say what, she's his mate and deserves to know.

She is looking at the bright stars above when the magic crashes into the land, the engine below decks dying and the COB's voice cutting through the night, summoning all hands on duty to the deck. Maddie shifts and turns to watch the deck as all those on duty flood onto the deck, fifty or so crew with the COB and Captain in the center of the front deck, standing just behind the main gun. She'd seen this for the first time as they'd travelled towards Hawaii, and ever since she tries to work it so she is on deck when they start up the magic engine.

"Away, haul away, Oh, haul and sing together,  
 _Away haul away, Haul away,_ _ **Joe!**_ _  
_  
Oh, once I had an Irish girl, but she was fat and lazy,  
 _Away haul away, Haul away,_ _ **Joe!**_ _  
_  
And then I had a yeller girl, she nigh druv me crazy,  
 _Away haul away, Haul away,_ _ **Joe!**_ _  
_  
But now I've got a Yankee girl, and she is just a daisy.  
 _Away haul away, Haul away,_ _ **Joe!**_ "

She smiles as their voices drift off from the chant, the magic engines below deck humming as they push the ship forward, the song a collective chant to start the engine just as it is to make a magic engine in a car work. They move further north, towards Japan and closer to her mate, causing her to smile into the wet sea wind.

Tony leads Bagira through the market of Lhasa, a wide street that could fit four wagons abreast with shops lining both side, though only foot traffic travels this road during the day. He has on his half mask, Bagira with a tan scarf wrapped around her head and face as she follows him with the heavier pack, posing as his porter. The crowd passing through the busy business market is large but not packed tight, Tony is able to move with an arm's reach between him and any other person as they walk. He stops at a shop from which wafts the scent of grilled meat, mutton if his nose is right, and he orders four of the skewered meats.

He hands three of the sticks to Bagira, who quickly begins eating the cooked meat while still glancing cautiously side to side, not comfortable in the crowded area. Tony leisurely walks down the street, his gaze catching repeatedly on the large palace perched over the city, practically looming and definitely a distinct presence in the city. They are nearing the end of the market area when he pauses in stride and glances around, noticing that a trio of guards in the livery of the Tibetan royal guards. He keeps eating his mutton on a stick, a third still remaining as he glances at them and taking their measure, then glancing around and seeing that they have signaled to others ahead of him.

"Calm," he says with a gesture to Bagira, his own arms free and only a small pack on his back with his quiver.

The guards don't approach, but circle around, cutting off routes to escape, and Tony internally frowns, knowing that he is unlikely to have a pleasant encounter from this. He had felt when he entered the city limits that it is Claimed, and that whomever it is resides in the palace, though he doesn't know who. He is finished with the mutton and a small circle of open space surrounds him from the crowd noting that he has stopped and the guards are focused on him when one of the guards approaches him, this one with an extra symbol of rank on his collar. The uniform he wears is part traditional and part modern, made of modern fabrics, buttons and zipper, but with a style that includes the flourishing ribbons and medals.

"Surrender your weapons," the guard says firmly, gesturing to the ground with his hand, the other resting nervously on the handle of his own long sword.

"For what reason?" Tony asks, using the tip of the wooden skewer to pick at his teeth.

"The Llama requests your presence," the guard says formally, scowling at Tony. "You will come with us."

It takes a moment for the statement to register, "The Llama, the Dhali Llama?"

"The one and only Great Llama," the guard replies.

Tony takes a breath to absorb that for a moment, then bows to the man in respect, "I would be honored to meet the Great Llama. We will relinquish our weapons on the threshold of the Palace."

The guard makes an uncomfortable face, but nods and gestures for Tony and Bagira to follow him. Tony throws the skewer past the guard into the trash bin twenty yards away with ease, earning him a wide eyed look from many of the guards, and they maintain their distance from him as they escort him to the palace.

Tony walks down the surprisingly close hallways of the Potala Palace, tapestries and paintings from centuries past along the walls with intricate furniture as well as countless statues to the Buddha. He can feel the age in the walls, through the floor beneath his feet, permeating into the stone below it. The guards that had escorted him had remained in the first foyer, where Bagira waits with his weapons and their gear, and five monks now escort him through the building, no weapons evident on them. They wear simple robes and have shaved heads with peaceful expressions on their faces, and he wonders how dangerous they would be if it came to a fight, not that he plans to fight them.

He enters a large room, a shrine to the Buddha with a marble floor and stone pillars rising up along its long length to its high ceiling, red and dark browns filling the space as light streams down from the windows and glass dome above. Tony slows his step and takes the time to look at and momentarily appreciate the statues arrayed along the walls with different versions of the Buddha, incense and candles burning gently around them. The scented air tickles his nose and threatens a sneeze but he controls the reflex as he approaches the large statue on the far end of the hall, a dozen feet tall despite that the figure is in the lotus position. Before it is a man sitting on a small mat on the floor, sticks of incense stuck in a pot of sand burning and sending tendrils of smoke lazily upwards.

Tony stops with the other monks a few yards away, and after a moment of internal debate Tony removes the half mask from his face, then lowers himself to sit on the ground in the lotus position as well. The monks on either side fold themselves to the ground as well with blank, serene expressions on their faces, and Tony takes a deep breath as he prepares himself to wait. A few breaths turn into the shifting angle of light coming through the windows until the light fades from the room entirely. As the dimness begins to turn to darkness a monk enters and lights the candles in the room one by one, a long tedious task which he performs without rushing and without worry.

Tony is reminded of his time on the mountain, and how similar daily rituals carried out by the inhabitants was initially something that he found odd, but eventually came to enjoy for its sense of regularity and normalcy. As they sit in silence his senses have continued to explore their surroundings, to include the birds calling and flying out in a nearby garden, as well as the nest on the roof's crease above their heads. Though he is relaxed as he sits, he continues to be aware and prepared to react should things suddenly require action, a trait given not by the mountain but by his father.

As he hears the distant rumble of thunder in the night and an increase in the wind outside the man sitting in front of the giant statue of the Buddha finally moves. Not the simple rise and fall of his chest, the beating of his heart and the movement of the blood in his veins that Tony has sensed since he arrived, but shifting and lifting himself until he is facing Tony from a short distance away while still seated. The man says nothing, his eyes low lidded as though drowsy, but Tony can sense the keen awareness in them just as he had known that the man was aware of his surroundings in the previous hours they had sat silently. Dressed in the same simple robes of his order as the others, he appears to be in his forties, his skin naturally olive toned and warmed by the sun as well, wrinkles near the corners of his eyes from frequent smiling and a slight epicanthic fold. The man studies him, his dark brown eyes unmoving from their central point on his face, and slowly the man smiles.

"You are refreshingly patient, for so young a soul," the man says with a gleam in his eye, speaking accented English. "It is good to meet you."

"The honor is mine, Great Llama," Tony says, bending his head as he replies in Chinese, the dialect of the region.

"And schooled in our language, I see," the man says, a nod of his head in return in the same language. "Even when with students your age who have come to us as toddlers, it is difficult to restrain the energy of youth."

Tony takes a breath to consider his response, "There is much to hear, if one is willing to listen closely."

"And what is it you hear, young master?" the Llama asks, tilting his head in curiosity.

"The wind in the distance as the storm approaches," he says, glancing in the direction of the approaching clouds. "The birds returning to their nests for shelter while those in the stables shutter the windows and soothe the horses."

The Llama nods, "Yes, there is much to hear." He studies Tony for a long moment before speaking again, "I own these lands, in more than a simple physical or legal sense. Do you understand what that means?"

"In my homeland we call it the Claiming," Tony replies with a nod. "My father is familiar with it, and warned me. I understand you may consider me a trespasser, but I only wish to continue my journey home."

"A traveler," the monk says, nodding slowly. "Going east, I suspect?"

"My home is in America, I have friends coming to help me continue my journey home, I will meet them along the way," Tony says simply, not wanting to give too much detail.

The man nods, his smile nearly mischievous now, "I would ask a task from you, if you would agree."

"If it does not interfere with my own journey, I will consider it," Tony says after a moment's thought.

"I have a scroll that must reach the hands of another of my order, far to the east, to Taipei, Taiwan," the Llama says, tilting his head in question.

Tony glances down in thought, mentally looking at where he is now and where that is, and how it would relate to his own mission home. It is east, so the same way, but not the plan his father and Maddie are tracking him to use, which is further north. This is a shorter route, though, and would get him to the coast faster, if there were no entanglements along the way, of which he has no way to predict. On the other hand, it's through the heart of China, and not what anyone looking for him would expect or predict. A major factor though is who is asking him, the Dali Llama, who has Claimed this region, meaning he's likely as powerful as Roland in his own way. As the Godfather would say, "This is an offer you cannot refuse."

"Very well," Tony says with a nod of his head.

"Excellent," the Llama says with a happy grin and nod of his head. "Your companion is in quarters we have for you to stay in for the night. Tell my brothers what supplies you require and it will await you when you wake in the morning for your journey. You will receive the scroll in the morning as well."

"Thank you, Llama," Tony says with a bow of his head.

"You did not ask for payment, for this task," the Llama says with narrowed eyes and a smile.

"I have gold and jewels, weapons and equipment that suit me," Tony says with a half shrug. "And my companion has what she needs as well, you have many fine things, but nothing that I need."

"Your reward will await you at your destination," the Llama says with a deep nod of his own, dismissing him.

Maddie is sitting in her cabin alone, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants while scowling at the small mirror which has her mate's own worried face on it.

"You agreed to do what?" she says, fighting hard not to snarl. "That was not the plan."

"The Dali Llama asked me to deliver a scroll for him, I couldn't say no," Tony says with a useless shrug.

"Yes, you could, just like this, 'no'," she says, saying the last word in a deeper voice, mimicking his accent. "See, that would have been much easier than changing the plan."

"Well, maybe, maybe not," Tony says with a sigh. "Either way, what's done is done. I'm sorry this might throw a wrench in your plans, but it's the plan I got right now."

Maddie sighs for a moment in acceptance, not wanting to be angry at him, but redirects the conversation to the point that is really bothering her, "You didn't tell me what happened on the mountain."

Tony frowns, "I would if I could, but I can't. I'm sorry."

Maddie takes another deep breath, having had a conversation with Aunt A about this and though neither of them are happy about it, she's just going to have to accept it.

"Fine," Maddie says with a frown that Tony rightly interprets as 'not fine' in girlfriend code. "Tell me about your new plan."

"Simple and straightforward," he says, glad for the change of topic. "We're getting a dual engine van here, and we drive. We take turns and roadtrip the whole way, stick to ley lines as much as we can, we'll have rations already packed in the back of the vehicle we're getting, so stops only for the bathroom, gas and magic water."

"Well, it is simple, and low profile," she says with a nod. "Still a long drive."

"Under two thousand, but yeah, a lot of miles," he agrees with a nod. "With the average speed of fifty miles an hour or so, it'll take us 37 hours of just driving, if we have no problems along the way."

"And you will have problems along the way," Maddie says to him firmly with a hard look.

"Which I will handle," he says firmly in response. "Nothing is going to stop me from getting back to you."

"You know just what to say to melt a girl's heart," Maddie says with a smile at him now.

"I love you," Tony says with a smile in return.

"I love you, too, talk to you later," she says with a wink before they close the link.

Richard is sitting on the platform on top of his barn behind the cabin, elbows resting on his knees, left hand cupping his chin and his Norse prosthetic lying on the wood in front of him. He'd come back from business in town and found Mischa and Tasha asleep in bed and he didn't want to disturb them. Not necessarily disturbing their sleep, but more because he's not entirely sure yet that Tasha may not accidentally think someone is trying to attack her in her sleep. Her actions since she's woken up make him think that her memories are buried, but that there's something in between the person she was and the one who woke up from the coma.

He raises his head at the sound of the back door of the cabin opening quietly, and tenses ever so slightly to see Tasha standing in the door, looking up at him. She walks across the yard and up the beams that act as steps to the platform, her gait during the ascent still hesitant and unfamiliar. She lowers herself to his level and lays her head in his lap, rolling to look up at him from her back. Richard stares down at her face, her eyes, so familiar and yet with something in them he doesn't quite recognize as _his_ Tasha, his wife and mate.

"Mate," she says quietly, her gaze boring into his as she reaches up to touch his face. "Richard, mate," she says pulling his face down to hers.

He kisses her softly, and when he pulls away she is looking at him with a puzzled expression, rolling to her toes in a crouch, eyes continuously fixed on his.

"What wrong?" she asks, the words broken and choppy.

"I missed you," Richard says, reaching out his good hand to cup her face.

"Back," she says, leaning into his hand, her eyes softening. "Get better, fix," she says with a nod at him.

He smiles and chuckles softly at her, "Yeah, you're back. And we'll fix this."

Her expression hardens and she gazes at him firmly, "How hurt?"

Richard looks at her with a puzzled expression, "What do you mean?"

"Me," she says, tapping her chest. "How hurt? Sister? Enemy?"

Richard nods in understanding then shaking his head, "Autumn didn't cause the coma, didn't cause the pain, it was Roland, the man who has tried to kill us in the past, who plots against us now."

"Ro-land," she says with a growl. "E-vil."

"Yes, Roland is a bad man," Richard agrees. "But we're safe here, for now."

"Safe?" she asks, tilting her head.

"I have made this place safe," he says with a nod, pointing at himself.

"Good," she says, moving forward next to him and curling into his side. "Good Richard, good mate."

He holds her into his left side with a tight smile, part of him rejoicing at the progress she's made in so short a time, but another traumatized by how far she's fallen.

Tony sighs as he carefully turns the wheel of the white colored van he and Bagira ride in through a ley line in central China. They'd gotten into it outside of Lhasa and followed it for hours before turning off of it and using the gasoline engine to drive the fifty miles to the next ley line that continues on towards the coast. He had struggled with the stick shift, having gotten his license literally just before he left Georgia to find his dad, so he has very little actual driving experience. Combine that with the horrible state of the roads, the insanely unsafe drivers on the road with him and the relatively cheap construction of their vehicle when compared to American cars and he is fairly certain that the odds of him dying on the road in a vehicle accident is far higher than him being killed by a monster or bandits, which are still high probabilities.

His initial plan of swapping out driving with Bagira hit a snag when he realized she had never seen a car in her entire life, which he also discovered was only actually 8 years, since apparently animal-weres mature at the rate of their animal counterparts into maturity. An interesting biological fact that he is certain Aunt A will be thrilled to know, but dwarfed in comparison to the realization that he is going to drive the entire way unless he wanted to risk her driving on these roads. He is fairly certain that his survival rate if he did that would drop further from his already low odds to numbers so low that Aunt A would likely have a stroke from hearing about if he actually did it. So, despite the fact that he now sleeps like a normal person, or someone with enhanced senses like him is, he will be staying up for the duration of the drive to get them to their destination. The good news is that although he'll be tired, and the driving is mentally tiring, it is not really physically draining and he has Bagira to help keep him awake and aware.

He's still pretty sure that Aunt A is going to yell at him for this.

Maddie sits in the briefing room of the Intel section of the ship, the rest of the Agogites with her as they discuss the change of mission due to Tony's new plan. They are arrayed around the table with Luang frowning and Maddie looking at him with a slightly confused expression.

"What?" she asks, just having finished giving them the news. "It's closer, isn't it? What's wrong?"

"This ship, unfortunately," Kris says with a frown as he rubs his chin.

"What, can't it reach Taiwan? Or is it a docking thing?" she asks, unsure what is wrong.

"The ship used to belong to Taiwan," Kris says with a frown and shake of his head. "This class of ship was originally fielded by the US, like fifty of them or so, but they were all decommissioned and most were destroyed before the Shift. None of them were recoverable. This one belonged to Taiwan and was in San Francisco when the magic hit. The US government claimed it for emergency purposes and reflagged her later as ours."

"Oh," she says, absorbing this. "So, are we allies with Taiwan?"

"Taiwan isn't allies with anybody," Luang says with a frown and a shake of his own head, pushing his black hair out of his eyes, growing it out to allow him to blend in with locals. "They have resisted attempts by China to retake them for decades, long before the Shift. They have become even more isolationist and have limited trade with the Polynesian Islands."

"Oh, shit," Maddie says with falling spirits. "How is Tony going to get there, then, much less us?"

"I don't know, we will have to contact the Khan and get his advice and work out a new plan," Luang says as he rubs his neck, having hoped to be able to handle most of the mission without having to call back to Houston for help. "Unfortunately, we will still have to travel to Japan."

"Why?" Maddie asks, getting increasingly frustrated.

"We do not own the ship, the Khan was able to arrange for us to be on the ship, but they have missions of their own," Kris says as he leans back in his own chair. "They run a route from Japan to Hawaii, then the west coast of the US and back, usually escorting ships. That was why we were on so tight a schedule to make the California coast before they crossed the Pacific. They waited a day for us as it was."

"Well, shit," Maddie says, slumping.

"And the tech is up, so we cannot contact either the Khan or Tony," Luang adds with a sigh.

"And as long as Tony's in a Ley line we can't connect to him," Ming reminds them with her own frown.

Maddie takes a determined breath, "Well, lets talk to the Intel Chief and see what we can pull up on our own and try to start a plan to get from Japan to Taiwan and see what Rick says when we call him."

Rick stands in front of the mirror in Autumn's shop, having come over immediately after the magic wave had come, so that he could be there when they call Maddie's mirror at the one hour mark. He stands with his right arm across his body and his left fingers rubbing his chin in thought as he'd just gotten Luang's no nonsense report and their adjusted plan to try and charter a boat out of Tokyo to travel to Taiwan. Autumn is scowling beside him grumbling under her breath about the idiot males in her family that can't seem to keep from complicating already dangerous situations.

"You can try that, but I doubt anyone will go," he says with a frown and shake of his head. "Taiwan's navy is actually pretty good, and their army is no joke either, last I heard. And China doesn't have many fliers but Japan does and has tried to get in from the air, so you won't be able to fly in. You're not going to get in unnoticed unless you pay a lot to get smuggled in, and most of the people in that region will likely take your money then sell you into slavery while you slept."

"Great vote of confidence, Rick," Maddie says with a frown from beside Luang on the other end of the link.

"Just being honest," he says with a shrug. "Best bet, in my opinion, try to link up with Tony in China or off the coast, get a small boat and you sail it yourselves to the island, hope to get in that way, pose as lost fisherman if confronted and hope you get encountered with a small Coast Guard cutter rather than a Navy ship."

"And a crew of a dozen or two we could potentially handle if surprise is on our side," Maddie says with a slow nod of her own. "Not a bad plan."

"No, not a _good_ plan. That doesn't make it _not_ a bad plan by default," Autumn corrects her with a frown, scowling at Richard because he's rubbed off on Maddie.

"So, what's your better plan?" Richard says with raised eyebrows at his sister, looking at her expectantly.

"I don't have one, okay?" she says with a growl of frustration as she reaches up and grabs her head with both hands, her anger boiling over. "Why in the name of all the gods and goddesses can't you ever have a good plan!? Why!? Why is it always the hard way!?"

Maddie's eyes are wide at the other end of the connection, leaning back at her Aunt's reaction, having never seen her lose her temper before, always the center of calm and control. Luang, the only other one at the mirror on their side simply remains silent and still, ignoring the outburst. Richard simply continues to look at her with his usual blank expression while she starts speaking in Gaelic about what he can only guess is a description of himself and quite possibly his level of intellect, though he doesn't speak the language. After about thirty seconds of vehement cursing and epithets she takes a deep breath, runs her hands down her blouse and resumes her usual demeanor as she looks back at Richard.

"Better?" Richard asks, face still blank.

She takes a breath and nods, "Better. But we're having a talk when this is all done."

"Okay," Richard says, turning back to the mirror. "Try and contact Tony and coordinate the linkup and then work the plan. I'll see what I can do here, but the best I can do is to maybe get approval from the White House to allow them to divert and drop you off before getting to Japan."

"Thanks, Rick," Maddie says with a nod.

"Don't thank me yet," he says with a shake of his head. "Once you're dropped off the ship isn't coming back. That means we still have to get you back from there, and you've already lost two fliers, so it'll be tougher to transport you all back that way."

"Damn it, I hadn't thought of that," Maddie says with another frown.

"One thing at a time, though," Autumn says, shaking her head. "You handle the Taiwan thing, we'll work the return plan."

"It'll just be adjustments on that contingency we talked about Lu," Richard says to the young man, who nods understanding.

Autumn clenches her jaw and takes a breath to calm her before speaking, "Of course, what was I thinking? You have a contingency plan for that."

Richard's expression shifts to a slow smile, "Of course I do. I always have a plan."

"I hope this one is better than the last," she says with a growl at him.

"Matter of perspective, I suppose," he replies with a shrug.

Tony sighs as he steps out of the van after driving for sixteen hours along the ley line. He's been keeping track of the signs as they passed, fluent in Chinese thanks to his time on the mountain, and Bagira marking their location every hour on the modern map they'd acquired in Lhasa. They are now outside of the city of Luzhou, which is ten times the size of Lhasa, over a million people inhabiting it and about twenty miles away from the ley line. The magic conduit of magic flows parallel to the Yangtze river, and continues to snake its way east and working north. He needs to continue heading east and a bit south, so they left the ley line and will go over normal roads using the gasoline engine and then hop on the ley line fifty miles from her that will head in the direction they need.

"I feels like the magic wave will last another five hours or so," Tony comments while stretching, Bagira doing likewise on the side of the road with him, both scanning their surroundings along the forested area for threats.

"Do you wish to rest, then resume travelling, sir?" Bagira asks, glancing at him.

"For a few hours, yeah," he says with a nod. "I can take a nap, if you'll watch, then we'll hit that other ley line before the tech crashes, ride it most of the way until we'll have to go the last hundred miles or so out of a line."

"I'll keep watch, sir, sir," Bagira says with a deferential nod, walking around the van to check the immediate area.

Tony wakes up as magic floods the world, his senses sharpening and jolting him awake, a sensation he had not been able to get used to on the mountain as it was always drenched in magic. He rubs his eyes groggily as he sits up on the back of the van, having laid down in the space in the back they'd made for that. He shifts and rolls over, opening the side door and glances around, the late afternoon light streaming down onto the road through the surrounding trees they'd parked a dozen yards off the road. He slides out of the van and senses Bagira on the other side of the vehicle, sitting silent and still then moving around the van to him.

"Did you rest well?" she asks as she nears him.

"Yeah, longer than I planned," he says, stretching with a yawn.

He feels the mirror in the van snap to life with magic, connecting to another mirror somewhere and Maddie's voice calling.

"Tony, are you there?" she says, and he can hear worry in her voice.

"I'm here," he says as he picks up the mirror and points it at his face, no mask on. "We stopped after sixteen hours of driving so I could rest. Didn't realize that Bagira had never seen a car much less driven one, so I had to drive the whole way. We'll be hitting the road and moving out in a few minutes, hopefully hit the coast in the next day or so."

"We hit a snag of our own," she says with a frown. "The ship we're on is not on good terms with Taiwan, long story. So we're going to pull in relatively close to the coast and fly over at night in two days' time. We'll link up with you, then we'll work together to smuggle ourselves into Taiwan to make your delivery."

"Sounds like a plan," he says with a nod, closing the van's back door and opening the front passenger door, looking at the map on the seat. "We'll get there before you, looks like. We'll be out of the ley line about ninety miles short of the coast. Where do you plan to put ashore, we'll head to the area and set up a marking for you to find us."

"We're leaving the ship near Manila in the Philippines, then flying six hours or so to the coast near Xiamen," she says, glancing at her notes in front of her. "We'll have to stash the Ptactors and Trixie, get a boat and then try to get into Taiwan posing as a fishermen, do your delivery, then retrieve Trixie and the others and work the plan to get home."

"Sounds like a plan," he says with a nod, smiling broadly at her now. "I'm going to see you in two days. How awesome is that?"

She blinks and now grins at him in return, "I'd been so focused on the mission it had almost slipped my mind. Almost."

"I love you and will see you in a couple days, beautiful," he says with a wink at her through the mirror.

"I love you, too, and see you soon," she replies, blowing him a kiss in turn.

Maddie frowns as she checks the buckles on Trixie in the late afternoon light, getting ready to take off for their long flight to mainland China. They had to reorganize their load outs for the mounts, the Ptactors able to fly two people but not with much additional gear, so they will be leaving gear behind for the ship to return to the US and ship back to Houston. They'd prioritized and adjusted loads then repeated that again and again over the last two days until they'd pared down the load to Kris on one Ptactor with some gear, Luang and Tim on the other with very little else, then Ming and Maddie on Trixie with some additional gear. Everyone had trimmed down their weapon loads to things that will work regardless of tech or magic being in charge of the world, which meant all their guns and radio gear being left behind.

"Everyone ready?" Luang asks from beside his Ptactor, looking at the others nearby as the sun disappears over the tiny smudge of land to the west.

Everyone nods assent and they mount up, strapping in and checking buckles, then Trixie goes aloft first, her endurance the greatest of the three remaining fliers. The other two are soon up as well and following behind Trixie in her slipstream as they circle up to gain altitude, leveling off at about ten thousand feet then continuing their journey west.

Tony sits in a field outside Xiamen next to the Shanfeng reservoir, looking up at the overcast night sky with a little bit of concern. With the cloud cover up the Ptactors and Trixie will have to drop altitude to be able to visually see the landmarks and navigate by terrain to this location he'd worked out with Maddie the last time they talked. He has five stacks of wood in the agreed configuration to signal to them it's him in a space big enough for them to land. He had ditched the van on the outskirts of a small town called Wenfengzhen, packed up the gear they'd need and walked here, avoiding contact with everyone.

Tony can feel that someone has Claimed this land, even with the tech up, but can't sense where that person is in relation to him or how far away. He also can't tell how much land this person Claimed, whether it is the local region or the province, which would at least give him a guess as to the person's level of power. China's population is huge in comparison to the US and the myths and legends here are millennia old, so if he and the others are confronted with the minions of the local power it is unlikely to go well if they decide to take offense to their presence.

With his face uncovered and senses on high alert towards the sky and Bagira keeping watch on the landing area he is the first to see the trio of dots in the night sky that is as clear to him as midday. He can't yet see who rides which mount, but he can make out the harnesses and recognize the two Ptactors as well as Maddie's description of Trixie. He takes a deep breath to calm his now racing heart as they draw nearer and once they are only a mile away he crouches down and touches the piles of wood with his bare left hand. The scars brighten in the dark as he pushes magic through his fingers to ignite the five piles and signal to those above that he is here and the area is safe to land in. He and Bagira step away to give the fliers room to land and Trixie is the first down in a fast dive, her wings still beating and her talons barely touching the ground as a figure drops from her back.

Maddie is in jeans and her green dragonhide vest, her dark purple hair trailing behind her as she sprints the distance between them and tackles Tony in a firm embrace that literally takes his breath away from the impact. He is gasping to regain his breath with her on top of him as she frantically kisses him repeatedly on chin and face until he has his breath back after a few moments and pulls her into a long firm kiss while they embrace. The rest of the world is forgotten by both of them as they lie in the long grass of the night swathed field and enjoy their reunion.

"I'm fine as long as they don't start stripping," Kris comments with a smirk as he climbs of his own Ptactor next to where Trixie is settling down.

"Greetings, friends of Anthony Hessberg, I am Bagira," Bagira says in Mandarin as she walks up to Kris, bowing to them all.

She wears the light tan and brown robes she's worn since crossing the mountain of light cotton hand sewn with a leather belt that holds her heavy broadsword and dagger. Her face is uncovered, her coal black hair pinned back loosely with many strands escaping it, high eyebrows and her plain face olive in the evening dark.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, I am Luang Xiang," Lu says with a bow of his own as he dismounts his own Ptactor, Tim and Kris not fluent in the language. "We are not a formal party, you may call me Luang. That is Ming dismounting from the Wyvern, this is Timothy and that is Kris."

Luang gestures to each as they dismount the fliers, Tim and Kris going to the small signal fires and putting them out, dropping the clearing into darkness once more. The party of Agogites and Tim wear jeans, black t-shirts and leather vests with their assorted gear, Kris with his axe and short sword as well as a short composite bow and quiver, Tim with a heavy rapier and main gauche, Ming with a narrow Tai Chi sword, daggers and composite bow with Luang wearing a heavier curved sword that can be wielded one or two handed. Tony and Maddie rise to their feet, hand in hand, and approach the others, Maddie with a grin on her face and Tony wiping lipstick from his own.

Kris walks over and hands a ten dollar bill to Luang with a smirk and a shake of his head as he glances at Maddie.

"What was the bet?" Maddie asks with a frown and narrowed eyes at him.

"I didn't think you'd be able to stop from ripping his clothes off," Kris says with a shrug and an unapologetic smirk.

" _I_ was confident in your ability to have a modicum of restraint," Luang says in an exaggerated haughty tone, tucking the money away.

"I am disappointed in you, Kris. How could you doubt me?" she asks with a tight mocking smile of her own and a shake of her head.

"You put on lipstick once we saw the coast," he says with a snort and a chuckle. "I think my concern was justified."

"Everyone, this is Bagira, you've been briefed on how we met," Tony says, gesturing to her, who bows again to the group. "She doesn't speak English well, but she is fluent in Chinese and her native tongue which doesn't have a name, it was a regional dialect."

"It looks like you will have an opportunity to practice your spoken Chinese lessons with another besides myself and Ming for the remainder of the journey," Luang says in Chinese with a smile at Maddie who frowns at him then simply shakes her head.

"I don't care, I've got Tony, so it's a good day no matter what," she says in badly accented Chinese, wrapping an arm around his elbow.

"Missed you too, love," Tony says, leaning over and kissing her head. "Maddie, this is Bagira, she's had my back since India," he says, introducing the technically younger but more physically mature panther-were to his girlfriend.

"I've never met an animal-were before," Maddie says, reaching out a hand to shake hers, Bagira awkward with the gesture but told about it from Tony. "Back home they say that they usually aren't as smart as you obviously are. I'm impressed."

"You give me too much credit, my lady," Bagira says with a bow as she steps back again, speaking in Chinese as Maddie had.

"Yeah, cut that out," Maddie says with a laugh. "It's Maddie, or if you're a real stick in the mud, Madelyn, though I don't like it. Or call me Michaels."

"She won't stop calling me 'sir'," Tony says with a wry twist of his lips and a gesture at Bagira.

"It is not unheard of here, either, to have intelligent animals and animal-weres," Luang adds from his own place in the group, Kris and Tim having moved away to check the area. "The old forests spawn their natural protectors if the land is not corrupted too far. In the Americas the land is too spoiled to allow the natural creatures to rise too far, it is why transplanted monsters and creatures of myth are able to flourish there."

"So, what's the plan for them?" Tony asks, still speaking in Chinese and pointing at the Wyvern and the two Ptactors.

"Timothy and Kris shall remain here with the mirror that is linked to the one you carry," Luang explains. "They will hide and move if necessary, the unridden Ptactor will follow Trixie no matter what as part of her flock and she is Alpha. We will proceed on foot to the coast, procure travel and sail to the island, deliver your scroll, then return or coordinate for link up."

"Rick relayed that the ship we sailed here on has a layover in Tokyo for a few days, so if we can do this fast and make it there before they get too far away, we may be able to catch up on the fliers and ride back with them," Maddie says adds. "If not, we either try to book passage on another ship or try to fly up through China, Rus then across the gap to Alaska then down home."

"Yeah, so, I bet Aunt A hates this plan," Tony comments with a tight smile and a dry chuckle.

"I don't think that's a strong enough word for it…" Maddie admits with a shrug.

"Do either of them speak Chinese?" Tony asks, gesturing to the two returning shapeshifters.

"I do, if not well," Kris says in the same language. "I'll never pass as a native speaker, but I can get by."

"Alright, then let's get what gear you need and move," Tony says with a nod.

The travelling party pulls the prepared packs off of the harnesses and are ready in moments, Luang leading with Bagira behind him, Ming in the rear and Maddie and Tony holding hands in the middle as they move out.

Autumn looks up from behind the counter of her store as the front door to her shop opens, the bells over it ringing cheerfully, though she suppresses the urge to swear as she recognizes her visitor. An older man most likely in his late fifties with long, iron grey hair pulled haphazardly away from his face looks at her without blinking his pale grey eyes. He stands just over six feet tall with a narrow, hawk-like face and a hatchet nose over a slightly bushy goatee that matches his hair and thick eyebrows, a faded and worn black robe belted around his narrow frame. His belt is a loose collection of large, thin links of a chain from which hang a number of charms and pouches containing a variety of miscellaneous things he feels he may need in a hurry.

Autumn has stepped back from the counter while lifting her staff from where it rested at her side, moving around it to be in the open area of the store, the man stopping just inside the entrance. She has her usual store attire on, her dark slacks and a dark green blouse with the top two buttons undone to allow her some air in the heat of summer and her hair hanging free. She has a few charms hanging from her wrist, another around her ankle under her slacks on her leather sandal and a few on her necklace, though she wishes she had her working belt on.

"Witch," the man says with a frown at her, his hands open and loose at his sides.

"Warlock," she replies in her own hard tone, relieved that no one else is in the shop at the moment. "This is my den, you are not welcome here."

"The door was unlocked, unbarred, with a welcoming sign upon it," he says, speaking in Gaelic. "I am not a trespasser here."

She narrows her eyes at him, knowing the truth of his words, "Why are you here?"

"You know full well why I am here," he says with a sneer at her. "You are altering the balance and must be put in check."

"Is that your opinion, or that of the Council?" she says in an accusing tone of her own, raising an eyebrow at him with anger in her voice.

He scowls at her for a moment before replying, "Your time is coming to an end, witch, and I will enjoy watching you suffer for your hubris."

"Begone. Begone. Begone," she says, her voice filled with power as she strikes the floor three times with her staff.

The man raises his arms in front of him in defense as the invisible wave of force hits him and throws him through the glass door window behind him into the street. Autumn speaks a phrase of command and the wards on the shop and building rise up to full strength, casting a low yellow glow as they flare into existence then fade to invisibility. Autumn watches as the man rises from his crouch in the street and turns, leaving while casting another angry look at her as he does.

She sighs after a few moments alone, the tension in her frame easing and then looking at the window with a frown. That's another door she has to replace…

Richard looks up from his desk in the security wing underneath the Bastion as the door opens, having scented his visitors and pushing the folders of reports to the side. He leans back while mentally sighing, the push back and consequence management for him Claiming the Houston area a nightmare and far more political than he likes and causing even more work than he'd predicted, which had been a lot. Tasha and Mischa enter with Jocelyn close behind, and even with the present circumstances, he is glad to see his family, even if they are not all here right now. Mischa sits heavily in one of the chairs and Tasha stands at her side, holding her hand and looking directly at Richard while she does, a possessive gleam in her eye as she looks at him that makes him smile which she returns.

"So, we think we've figured out what happened to her," Mischa says with a worried expression of her own.

"We were talking about how to tell time," Jocelyn says, sitting down in the other chair and pulling her dangling bare feet up underneath her. "She kept shaking her head about how long a second is, and a minute, and the other stuff. I tried to tell her she'd been gone for a few weeks, but she kept saying no."

"So how long _was_ she gone?" Richard asks, suspecting the truth. "Years?" he asks, fearing the answer as he looks over at Mischa.

"Longer," Mischa says with a concerned frown.

"Sen-toor-ees," Tasha says, speaking brokenly, looking at him firmly, then tapping her head slowly and deliberately. "Gone for long time… _pain_ , whole time."

Richard leans forward and places his head in his hands, covering his face as that hits him, his jaw clenching in anger as he tries and fails to find his calm. His eyes are clenched and he can feel his left hand's fingers scratch his head as they elongate into talons, fur on his arm now. He's breathing hard and his eyes are screwed tightly shut when he feels a soft touch on his left arm, gentle against the short fur there. He raises his head and Tasha is there at his side, her pale blue eyes practically glowing as she lowers herself to be eye to eye with him and gently resting her hand on his face.

"Ssshhhh…." She croons softly, soothing his inner tiger and his rage subsiding within him. "Here. Now. Fix."

Richard rests his head on her shoulder for a moment, allowing himself the moment of weakness in front of the women of his life, taking a deep breath and enjoying the scent of her which always calms his soul when it is at its most turbulent. After a few moments he leans back then places a kiss on her forehead his own left arm stroking her cheek while his prosthetic sits in his lap.

"Okay, so we keep moving forward," Richard says, pulling Tasha to sit in his lap and turning to the other two, looking at Jocelyn specifically. "I'm counting on you guys to help out until she's back up to speed. She gets some time for rehab after an injury, but that's almost up, and there may be others in the Horde that may try to get ambitious and knock her off the top."

"There's not many, but there are a few that are desperate or stupid enough to try," Mischa agrees. "We're already watching them in case they try to make a move."

"Maddie and Tony called, they're together and heading to deliver a scroll to some temple in Taiwan," Jocelyn says with a smile on her tanned face, her brown hair in small braids running back on her head in rows. "I like his new haircut, and Maddie dyed her hair, I want to change mine, too."

"We'll talk about that later," Richard says with a smile at her. "Why don't you go back upstairs and work on that history assignment, I'll stop by your room to help in a bit. Make sure you let Ashley help. I have to talk about some Horde business with Mischa."

She hops off the chair and runs around the desk, giving him and Tasha a quick hug then skipping out of the office and back upstairs. Richard sighs and opens a drawer on the right and pulls out a bottle with amber liquid in it, then a stack of steel cups that he sets out and pours the liquid in. He hands one cup to Tasha, then slides another across the desk that Mischa leans over to pick up then lifts the last one for himself. He holds it up in salute, Mischa mirroring him and Tasha doing the same after a moment of looking at the other two and realizing she should do the same.

"To family," he says, and Mischa repeats it, and they all take a sip, Tasha after the others as she mimics them.

She sprays the whiskey back into the cup, glancing at the contents with narrow eyes then looks accusingly at Richard then Mischa, the first of whom is chuckling slightly. Tasha puts down the cup with a frown at him, and he lifts his cup up to take another drink while she frowns at him.

"I'm not worried about internal politics, I'm worried about Roland," Mischa says, swirling her own drink and looking into the cup.

"Me, too," Richard admits, setting down his cup and reaching into the drawer and pulls out a different bottle, this one square with a different liquor in it. He pours it in his empty cup and hands it to Tasha who takes it with a very suspicious expression, then sniffs it and takes a cautious sip. Finding she likes the sweet liquid she drinks more as Richard takes the cup she had discarded the first time.

"Alex is running Hoffman's pretty well, he needs minimum input from me," he says while he had poured. "I'm more worried about every idiot in the land with a touch of magic coming here to either try to knock me off or try to make a deal to be one of my proxies."

"There's a name for that, Autumn was talking about it," Mischa comments.

"Yeah, I had a hard enough time adjusting to having minions when I joined the Horde, not sure if I'm ready to expand that much," Richard says with a twist of his head as Tasha leans back to be more comfortable across his lap.

Mischa chuckles dryly, "You could have fooled any of us. You jumped in like a fish to water, the only thing slowing you down was not being an Alpha right off the bat. Once you knocked down Danny, you seemed to take it all in stride."

"You know me better than that," Richard says with a snort of his own. "Tash had to have told you I didn't want to do it."

"She didn't," she says with a shake of her head and a smile at him and Tasha. "She said that was your relationship, not mine. She kept your secrets. She still won't…" she stops with a frown. "I mean, she wouldn't tell me before the… incident, because of that. Even though we all share the same bed."

Richard has turned his gaze on Tasha, a questioning look on his face to which she smiles at him, "Mate. Protect mate, protect body, and heart."

"How did I get so lucky?" he asks her.

"No luck, work," she replies with a smile, leaning down and kissing him.

Tony is pleased and only a little surprised at how easy it is to acquire a fishing boat to sail the stretch of ocean to their island destination while he is accompanied by the Agogites. They don't buy one but simply confidently walk down a pier until Luang hops into a boat seemingly at random, they untie from the dock and they pull out into the water while Maddie raises the small sails and Ming crouches next to a small gasoline engine. Luang and Bagira each have a long pole they use to inexpertly push them away from shore, and once a few hundred yards away the engine starts and the motor pushes them further into the channel. Once far enough out, Luang continues to give curt instructions and Maddie and Tony go into the single deck below to remain out of sight, a pair of round eyes like them would be very suspicious.

In the small hold they find storage for fishing and other boating equipment, most so old to be considered antiques and very little of anything from the last decade. There are two mattresses and they settle on the less dirty of the two with a leather cloak from Tony's pack spread over it first, the entire hold smelling heavily of fish. Tony lies down with Maddie curled into his side and they lie there with their gear and clothes on and nothing over them in the stuffy compartment as they sail in the summer night.

"I am so glad you're okay," Maddie says, looking up from where her head lies on his chest. "You seem… different, than when you left."

"In a good way, I hope," Tony says with a smile down at her, his half mask off.

She leans up and kisses him, "Absolutely. I missed you so much."

"You put on lipstick?" he teases her with a smile.

"I wanted to look good for you," she says as she lays her head down on his chest again.

"You always look amazing to me," he replies, kissing the top of her head and stroking her bare arm below the vest and t-shirt.

"He won't say it, but Rick's worried, like really actually worried, I think," Maddie says, running her finger over the silk shirts he wears. "And I really did think Aunt A was going to try and lock me in a cage to keep me from coming."

"Dad would never let her do that," he assures her.

"I am pretty certain that is the only reason I was able to leave," she says with a small sigh. "I didn't even have to be there to know there was a big argument about it, guaranteed."

"Aunt A is a worrier, Dad's the one that does things, no matter what," he says with a shrug. "They both have their pros and cons."

"I am still mad that we have to go to this island to deliver a stupid scroll," she says with a frustrating sigh. "It's an unnecessary risk."

"That's rich, 'unnecessary risk'," Tony says with a snort. "Coming from you."

She pokes him firmly in his side and frowns up at him, "I'm serious. This place has resisted invasions from the Chinese and Japanese Empires. Rick was worried, he actually didn't have a prepared plan for this, I'm pretty sure he made it up on the fly."

"Well, it's not a bad plan," Tony reasons.

"Only because there's no better one with the resources we brought with us," she says with another sigh and rests her eyes.

"Have faith, love, it will work out," Tony says, relaxing and closing his eyes as well.

"Damn right it will, because I'll make it work," she says with a smile, wrapping her arm around him possessively.

Ming is crouching in the front end of the boat, drawing sigils onto the rail as they coast along the eerily still waters. Bagira is sitting near the bow of the boat scanning the darkness and glances at the other woman, unfamiliar with human shapeshifters and curious.

"May I ask you a question, ma'am?" Bagira asks quietly, barely heard by Luang on the back of the relatively small boat.

"As long as you do not call me ma'am again," she says with a glance up from the rail, her face neutral. "If I am imparting lessons, call me Sefu during that time, but otherwise Ming will suffice."

Bagira nods, Tony having told her that those they would meet up with have extensive training in field combat and activities with each member specializing in some form of combat.

"I have seen magic used before, but am not trained in it, as I have little aptitude. What are you doing?" she asks.

"I am setting up a ward along the surface of the vessel," she says with a nod of understanding, continuing to focus on her writing as she is nearly half done with her inscriptions. "When I am done the boat will be protected from most magical attacks and impervious to mundane weapons."

Bagira nods, then frowns in confusion, "But the magic is not up, and when it is not, such a thing would be useless."

"Normally that would be correct, but the island we travel to, it is an exception to that," Ming says with a twist of her own head. "It is the only recorded land mass that is always heavy with magic which also has human settlements on it."

Bagira blinks for a moment as she absorbs that, "Magic alwasys works there?"

"Always," Ming affirms with a nod of her head. "It is why Tony and Maddie are hidden but not sleeping or otherwise occupied. The magic defenses of the island are formidable and is the sole reason the island has resisted being conquered since the Shift. We must be always on guard, as we do not know how they defend their island."

"We considered waiting and gathering more information before proceeding, but the mainland is not our ally, so speed and surprise are our greatest assets," Luang adds from the rear of the boat in a subdued tone. "The risk is still great, but gathering intel on the mainland is even more dangerous. As it is, our friends who remained behind will likely be moving from place to place constantly to stay ahead of the local forces."

Bagira nods slowly as she processes that, "Every time that I think I know the world that I live in, something new is brought before me."

"Knowing that there is still much left to learn is the first step to wisdom," Ming says, echoing the teachings of her family patriarch.

Bagira only nods in response, resuming her watch over the open waters surrounding them for miles.

Tony awakes in a flash as something bumps against the bottom of the boat that makes it shudder alarmingly and ring like a hollow wooden bowl. He and Maddie are up and moving towards the deck in a flash and look at the surrounding waters with the others as dawn starts to light in the East, revealing their destination as a line of green above the blue. The others have weapons at the ready, Luang with a bow in hand and Bagira with sword in hand while Ming has her hands raised and ready to cast a spell. The inscriptions along the rail of the boat are glowing a deep red, they having passed the invisible line that marks where magic reigns supreme in Taiwan.

"What is it?" Luang asks, twin swords ready as he studies his portion of the boat and beyond.

"I cannot see anything," Ming says, her eyes glowing a pale orange as she attempts to scry the thing that hit the boat.

Tony pushes his own magic into the small amulet around his neck he had made while on the mountain, a replica of the one Aunt A had given him, but made of gold and modified to not be limited to a certain number of uses. He looks around the boat as it shudders again, harder this time and the mast of the ship shakes alarmingly, the sails and lines shifting and straining. An aura is below them, long and sinuous as it swims through the water, the head of it having struck the back quarter of the boat.

"It's about twenty yards long, about a yard thick in the middle," Tony says simply with his own white glowing eyes as he pulls the half mask from his face and tossing it aside on the deck with one hand while drawing DrageBein and shifting it to its bow configuration.

The boat rocks again, harder and the mast threatens to break from the impact, even with Ming's enchantment protecting it and the hull of the ship.

"UP!" Tony says, turning to Maddie who drops her gladius to the deck and forms a cup with her hand.

He hops up and places a foot in the cup and she launches him up while he jumps, and he lands on the crosstree of the mast on the balls of his feet. He sways and places a hand on the mast to steady himself and looks down at the dark water, spying the approaching aura under the water. He draws and fires a green fletched arrow into the water, which enters the water and slows but strikes the sinuous thing below. The arrow releases the charged magic in the form of electricity on contact with the target and it spasms and dives down deeper below the boat as Tony places his hand back on the mast for balance.

"It dove deep, I can't see it," Tony says, scanning the area around the boat.

"We need to get out of here," Luang says with a frown, placing the bow across his back and returning to the wheel of the boat. "Ming, can you conjure a wind to propel us?"

"It will take me a few minutes to prepare," she says as she pulls out brushes and ink from the bag slung at her side.

Tony drops and hangs from the cross tree one handed then swings and drops the rest of the way to the deck into a roll and is back to his feet to absorb the impact before he turns to the back side of the sails.

"I've got it," he says, changing DrageBein into a spear then drawing a Chinese character in the air in front of him with the tip.

The lines of the symbol glow a dark blue as he draws it, the character two feet high, then Tony spins and tucks the spear under his right arm and shoves his left hand at it. A haze of multicolored magical energy that matches the color of his scars pushes out and hits the floating character, turning it a bright, luminescent blue that moves away from him and enlarges until it hits the sail, causing it to billow out as though pushed by a strong wing.

"That should last five or ten minutes," he says, shifting the spear to his left hand again, scanning the waters once more.

Maddie is beside him, her head tilted slightly to the side with a raised eyebrow, "I didn't know you could do that."

"I picked up a few tricks during my trip," he replies with a shrug, trying to not draw attention to the details of it. "I have a few other things like that I picked up. Nothing complicated like Ming or Aunt A can do, but simple stuff that I can power up significantly."

Maddie nods and bites her tongue, still not happy with the lack of full disclosure she's getting about the details of what happened on the mountain. She's putting her gladius back in its sheath on her back when she sees the splash of water behind the boat and a lion-like head that has tendrils and scales covering it breaks the surface of the water. The head is two feet across and twice that long with a widening body swinging behind it to propel it through the water as it chases them, fifty yards away and closing on the boat at an even pace.

"Six o'clock!" Maddie shouts, pointing to the head, the colors muted by the dim lighting making it dark and indistinct to her.

Tony turns and the spear shifts to a bow in a pair of heartbeats, he sets an arrow on the string with blue fletching as he draws and fires at the bobbing target. The arrow lances out and skips off of the brow of the creature, but the projectile discharged its payload and the place it struck is engulfed with immense cold. The creature screams a hissing snarl of pain as it stops following them and shakes its head against the effect of the magic on its head before diving beneath the waves and out of sight.

"I'm guessing we just found out one of the reasons Taiwan is still an independent country," Tony says with a frown. "How long until we get to shore?"

"If we can keep the wind?" Luang asks rhetorically as he estimates the distance to the approaching shore in the lightening dawn. "An hour, maybe."

"My spell will not be as powerful as Anthony's, but will last long enough to get there, and it will draw attention to other magic users," Ming says with a glance at Luang.

"I can add power to it once you have it prepared, that will keep our speed up," Tony says as Luang nods approval.

She goes to the deck behind the mast and starts using the brush and ink to inscribe her spell onto a long piece of scroll paper she uses for some of her spells. Tony is looking around them and frowns at what he sees with his enhanced vision, eyes white as he scans the magical spectrum.

"We have two off the port side and three off of starboard heading for us," he says, walking over to the rail and putting his left hand on it.

He reaches into the well of power within himself and pushes it into the already strong ward, causing the surface of the hull to shimmer with red light as he strengthens it further. He removes his hand and takes a breath, his head a little dizzy from using so much magic in so short a time and he smells copper on his wet upper lip. He wipes the blood that came from his nose away as Maddie looks at him with a frown while she takes the bow and quiver from Luang. He steps to the starboard side, Maddie on the port so he's facing more of the monsters than she is, being better with a bow. He notices that the creatures don't surface near the boat but maintain their speed and swim alongside them about ten yards below the surface, impossible to shoot with a bow through that much water.

"Stand clear of the rail," Tony says firmly with a frown as he has an idea that may work.

He pulls a yellow fletched arrow from his quiver and holds the tip against the rail where Ming's ward is inscribed and he draws a simple Chinese character he had learned on the mountain that allows him to join two existing spells or wards together. He pauses as he glances down and around, watching the five auras swim around and with each other as they rise up quickly from deeper under the water on a collision course with the bottom of the boat. Just before impact he pours his magic into the arrow and by extension the ward, and when the creatures hit the hull nearly simultaneously, they are all jolted with a heavy dose of electricity. His vision dims and his head swims as he stumbles from the ward, dropping the arrow and his bow to the ground as he falls to his knees gasping.

"I'm okay, I'm okay…" he says while catching his breath. "I just need a minute or so…"

"That was stupid," Maddie says quietly as she kneels beside him her arm under his right arm and a worried expression on her face.

"It needed to be done," he replies simply. "Let me know when Ming is ready, and I'll power up her spell."

"Do you have enough juice left?" Maddie asks, concerned.

"Plenty of juice, it's just that channeling it is draining, it's like sprinting, the muscles can do it, but I don't have the wind for it yet," he tries to explain. "The more often I use it, the less taxing it will be."

"Why does that sound familiar?" she asks, frowning in thought.

"Aunt A says it a lot," he says with a momentary chuckle. "After I power Ling's spell I'll be down for a half hour or so, but if we're lucky, those were the closest ones in this area guarding, and we can make it shore without any more surprises."

"Aaaaand now you jinxed us," Maddie says with a sigh, helping him to his feet and handing him his bow.

Bow in hand and leaning against the mast he regains his balance and Ming approaches with the long, intricately drawn and narrow ribbon of writing. Tony steps back and joins her as she raises up the ribbon and chants to activate the spell, Tony drawing the joining symbol with his left hand in the air and pushing magic through it into her spell and adding power. He takes a deep breath and sits down on the deck, leaning against the mast and closing his eyes to stop his vision from spinning.

"Here," Maddie says from where she kneels next to him, handing him his half mask from where he had discarded it.

"Thanks," he says with a nod, raising it up to cover his scarred half again.

"It was different, seeing you fight without your mask on," she says with an odd look at him. "It feels… weird."

"Weird?" he asks, raising his unscarred eyebrow as he straps the mask in place.

"Y'know, like seeing someone who you've always seen with glasses take them off," she says, trying to explain. "Not bad, just… weird."

He smiles at her, taking her hand in his, "Well, keep an eye out, you're probably right, I doubt that those swimming creatures were their only line of defense."

"Just catch your breath, Ming's got her sight up, and the rest of us will keep watch," she says with tight smile, standing up to watch from the starboard side, Bagira watching port and Ming having ascended the mast to get a better vantage.

"Something is approaching from shore," Ming says from atop the mast, pointing ahead and off to the starboard side of the boat.

Tony suppresses a groan as he rises to his feet and looks that way, pausing before activating his magic sight charm.

"It's a ship, looks to be about twenty yards across, no sails," Tony says, peering at what looks like a barely distinct dot to the others. "Writing on the bow says it's a Taiwanese Defense Boat. They've got what looks like some kind of gun on the bow, never seen anything like it before."

"Your sight has gotten better," Ming says with a glance at him, then at the rail of the boat. "If I erect a ward on the ship that will shield us we will lose the use of the sails."

"Prepare it and stand ready," Luang says from the wheel as he puts on a robe taken from the hold, as does Ming and Bagira. "Tony, Maddie, go below and wait for my signal to come above, hopefully we can pass by without inspection."

Tony leads Maddie below decks, leading her over to a corner and picking up his leather cloak along the way. He brings them to the storage locker at the end and opens the six foot high double doors revealing a wide wall locker type storage area. He pushes the ratty jacket and shirts to the side and steps in and into the corner, gesturing Maddie to him. She steps in after him and he pulls her close and lays the cloak over her and him, reaching out and closing the doors then adjusting the shirts and jacket to conceal them before shifting the cloak to cover the rest of them and he ducks his head under it.

"They'll be able to hear our heartbeats and breathing if they have a shapeshifter or see our auras if they have a spellcaster," she whispers to him, worried but enjoying being held close by her mate.

"I have a trick for that," he says, trying mightily not to be distracted by Maddie pressed against the front of his body.

They wait quietly as the boat rocks in the waves and Tony soon discerns the slapping of waves against another hull as the other ship draws closer. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to calm himself and find his center, then gently pushes his magic into the cloak they are wrapped in. He feels a slight buzz and an inaudible pop as his spell locks in then his senses dull as the outside world feels like a heavy blanket has been pulled over it, a sensation he hasn't felt since the day the accident gave him superhuman senses.

"I can't hear anything," Maddie says with a slight note of worry.

"It's okay, I did that," Tony says in a low voice. "It muffles sound both ways, but to a greater degree for those trying to look through it at us. You may not be able to sense anything, but I can still hear what is going on. The other boat is pulling alongside now."

Maddie doesn't respond, though she adds another line of questioning to the things she needs to have a closed door conversation with her mate about. Tony closes his eyes and focuses on the sounds he can still hear, sorting them out and unsurprised at the brief shouts from above and a short burst of magic. He hears no cry for help or assistance, though, and he remains still as footsteps descend the steps and into the small cabin they are in. The steps move slowly down the length of the hold, pausing in front of the locker to open the door to the wall locker and he slows his breathing down and prepares to strike out if necessary.

The door opens a few inches, enough for someone to peer in, and after a moment the door is closed again and the person walks away, calling up to the deck above as he does.

"The hold is empty, nothing of value and it stinks of fish and a mix of human and maybe another shifter," he can hear the voice say, but the rest of the conversation is lost to him as the speaker is now on deck and indiscernible.

He hears some activity above for a few minutes, then the half dozen footsteps that had come aboard leave the way they went. A few minutes later the other boat pulls away from their ship and when about thirty yards away the front of their own boat jerks in the water and he can hear the snap of a cable drawing tight. He drops the enchantment from the cloak and Maddie raises her head from where she had been drowsing on his shoulder as she can now hear.

"What happened?" she asks, parsing their surroundings.

"They came aboard, checked the hold and left," he says in a low whisper. "It feels like they are tugging our boat behind theirs. Let's check the deck, slowly."

Maddie exits, drawing her gladius silently as he follows her, DrageBein shifting to a bow in his hand from its compact form. Maddie stops below the level of the deck and slowly eases her head higher to study the deck before moving to allow Tony to do the same. He scans the deck and frowns to see that Luang, Ming and Bagira are nowhere to be found, though he notes that there is no blood on the deck.

"Stay here, I'll take a peek at the other boat," he says low, creeping out of the hold and leopard walking to the rail.

Maddie follows him, despite being told to stay put, and as he slowly rises to catch a glimpse over the rail, she does the same.

About a hundred feet ahead of them is the stern of the ship he had seen approaching them, a steel hull colored grey and the water churning behind it from a magic fueled engine driving it forward. On the stern where a helicopter landing pad had been is now a wooden turret with an odd looking lump on it that is uneven and pointing vaguely upward with a rounded tip, looking somewhat like an upside down nose. Beyond that is a steel superstructure rising twenty yards high, a pair of lookouts stationed on the upper rails looking out to sea with binoculars around their necks. The lookouts where a dark blue uniform with dark red accents Tony can discern at this distance, though Maddie cannot, and their attention is on the horizon.

"I count two up high, none on the deck," Tony says as they lower themselves back down out of sight after their three second peek.

"If we go in hard, I can be across that cable in five seconds," Maddie says, her brow furrowed in thought. "How long for you?"

"Ten or so," he says with a half shrug. "I don't have your speed."

"We observe for ten minutes, if a roaming guard comes, right after you take out the two lookouts we go, find the others, then either jack a dingy or whatever they use for a small boat or we fight it out," she says, laying out a plan.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," he says with a frown of his own. "I don't think they are dead, but that ship has a lot of people on it, and maybe we can take out everyone on board, but remember, they've held off China for years. I don't think we should underestimate these guys. Better to assume they're good enough to fend off any boarders."

Maddie scowls deeper but nods agreement, "And we don't have a good layout of the ship. I can guess where the brig is, but it will take longer than a direct route, even though you read the language better than I do." She sighs angrily, "So, you're right, we need a better plan."

"And we can't kill those people," Tony adds, which earns him a flat, astonished look from her.

"What?" she asks incredulously, trying not to yell at him. "They took our people!" she says, whispering harshly at him. "God only knows if they're still alive and what they're doing to them if they are!"

"These people are defending their homes from foreign invaders and smugglers," Tony says in a strained tone of his own, frowning back at her. "They are likely conscripts to the job, too, unwillingly drafted into these jobs if they are like the country that preceded the return of magic. They didn't ask to do this job, and if they did they are protecting their land and their families. What would we do in their position? If someone tried to sneak into our territory illegally?"

Maddie scowls at him for a moment, her jaw working, then turns away angrily, "God _dammit_. Why do you have to make so much sense?"

"If you're going to blame anyone, blame Aunt A," he says with a small toss of his head, glancing over the rail for a moment then back down. "They're going to have to off load them and send them to shore. They'll probably question them there, process them and then lock them up where ever they keep anyone convicted. Weakest link will be transportation from the ship to lockup, or from processing to prison or execution site if that's the penalty, which I think it is here."

"We are not letting that happen," she says firmly, looking at him with a hard glare, daring him to argue.

"No _shit_ , we aren't," he agrees with a touch of anger himself. "This is my mission they got captured on, remember? Everything that is happening right now is my fault for taking the job from the Dali Llama."

Maddie takes a deep breath, calming herself before speaking again, her voice still slightly strained, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to snap or suggest that you'd leave them, I know they're your friends too."

"We'll be close shore soon, depending on how they off load them and how soon, we may get lucky and get a shot at hitting the lighter boat they use for the transfer," Tony says, redirecting the conversation.

"That's if they don't disconnect this boat beforehand and put too much distance between us and them to affect the movement," Maddie points out with a sigh as she thinks over the problem.

"If we're still hooked up, we can cross the distance the way you suggested and make a sprint to the light boat and try to use that as the getaway vehicle, crash into the wharf district and try to disappear in the city," Tony proposes, looking at her.

"If not, we'll have to wait it out and try to either break them out of processing or the next transfer," Maddie says, agreeing with the first plan.

"It'd be harder, but we'd have to break them out of processing," Tony says with a frown, and Maddie gives him a puzzled look.

"We're white Americans in Taiwan, getting information on prisoner exchange routes and times and finding the one with our people on it would be next to impossible," Tony reasons. "I'm pretty sure you and I can shake down a local pickpocket or thief to tell us where processing is, though."

"Okay, point," Maddie agrees, nodding her head as she mentally readjusts her read on the environment they'll be dealing with.

"So now, we wait," Tony says, glancing over the rail and waiting patiently as the shore grows more distinct and detailed on the horizon.

They sit next to each other, Maddie's own frame slowly relaxing from the initial anger and frustration as the opportunity to act draws nearer. Tony simply watches intently as his eyes barely crest the edge of the boat in line with the mast so as to not be obvious to the towing ship, though the vantage of the lookouts make spotting him even more difficult. After about fifteen minutes they are about a mile off shore and Tony watches a crane pivots over the water with a fifteen foot long motor boat hanging from pulleys and rope and he taps Maddie next to him. She shifts from her seated position to kneel next to him, waiting for his go signal as he gestures to the starboard side, where the launch is being lowered into the water, and she nods understanding.

He watches as a pair of seamen walk onto the boat and begin prepping it, then when he sees an armed guard followed by a man in chains wearing mismatched worn clothing he stands up, draws and fires at the two sentries visible from his spot next to where the boat is hooked up to the tow cable. Maddie is up and in the air, landing on the cable and sprinting across the cable in long bounds as the two sentries go down with a mundane arrow through their right shoulders, non-fatal wounds. Tony hops onto the rail then walks fast across the cable with DrageBien in spear form for balance as he makes the traverse and arrives at the stern of the ship as three men step onto the deck from the door in the rear of the superstructure, Tony guessing that whoever mans the turret on the rear having noticed them and sent the alarm.

He hears splashes near the launch while he shifts his weapon to bow form and fires mundane arrows into all three armed sailors, shafts cutting through their outer thighs and crippling them for the time being. He turns and runs after Maddie, arriving as she, Bagira, Luang and Ming jump into the boat, another prisoner lunging over the rail to land in the boat as well. He vaults the rail at an angle and lands on the moving deck of the launch, turning and chopping the front rope free of the crane as Maddie frees the two at the rear away. She turns and drops to the magic engine and steering stick at the rear and Tony is there shoving his hand on it and starting the magical engine in a flash of multicolored light.

The boat pulls away from the larger craft while Maddie steers them towards the shore, cutting at an angle from the larger ship and starting to weave back and forth in evasive maneuvers.

"They're scrambling on the deck," Luang calls out over the wind as they head towards the city ahead of them. "That turret in the front looks like it's starting to turn towards us."

"Shit," Tony says with feeling as he bends his knees against the bouncing surface of the boat as it heads inland at thirty-five miles an hour. "Ming, can you erect a ward?"

"I don't have my equipment," she says simply as she pulls a knife from Tony's belt to start working at getting the thick plastic restraints off of her, Bagira and Luang's arms, too thick and awkward to break, even with their enhanced strength.

"Fuck," Tony curses, not wanting to have to reveal his learned abilities so publicly, but the situation having forces his hand. "Maddie, straighten out, directly at the city and slow down, I need a smoother ride."

"What are you doing?" she says as she turns the throttle down and the bouncing of the small boat steadies.

"Don't ask," he says, DrageBien now in spear form as he draws a character into the air in front of him, then another and another until there are seven atop each other.

He spins the spear in a predetermined pattern, the glyphs moving and weaving, glowing a deep amber color and pulsing slightly, each six inches across and the pattern three feet across. The turret is pointing at them now, the firing point on the bump lowering to aim at them, the tip of it starting to glow red. Tony's senses are dialed down so that time passes at a crawl and when the flash of bright red light emerges from the turret he opens the gates on the magic within him wide open for his spell. The characters flash gold in the morning light, expanding and shimmering with light into a circle ten yards across as a bolt of red light lances across the distance towards him and the small boat, moving as fast as an arrow even to his slowed sense of time. The ward shudders and Tony narrows his focus only to maintaining the connection to the localized ward as the red light splashes over the angled invisible shield.

The directed magic attack splashes around and past them, ricocheting into the distance on all sides and shoving the boat he stands on forward in a burst of speed as his magically anchored feet are forced back. After the surge of magic passes, the toll of the casting hits his body hard as his legs give out and he collapses onto the deck of the boat, Ming moving to catch him as he fights not to pass out and fails.

Maddie flinches and nearly wrenches the handle from the engine of the boat as they are shoved forward from what she can only guess is the impact from that turret's fire hitting Tony's ward just behind her. She blinks against the fading light and her eyes widen in horror to see Ming cradling Tony's limp form on the deck of the boat, her fingers on his neck looking for a pulse. Her blood runs cold as she lunges from her seat and puts her own fingers on his neck, relief flooding her as she feels a heartbeat but then draining from her as she realizes he's not breathing. Ming has moved but her world has shrunk to the size of her and Tony and nothing else as she panics for a moment then her training kicks in.

She shifts around so she is beside his head, tilts his head back, pinches his nose closed then presses her mouth to his, forcing her breath into his parted lips and open airway. She repeats this process five times, not recalling in her panic whether this is too many or not enough, only knowing that his brain needs oxygen to make his heart beat and this is how you give it to them. She pauses as the air pushes out from between his lips but nothing happens afterwards, he doesn't reflexively gasp in a breath of air on his own. She breathes into him five more times, and again no response from him as the air escapes again, his heart beating but fainter than before. She strikes his chest with a fist, hoping the impact will cause him to react, but again nothing and she pushes more breaths into him, repeating the process with no measured number anymore, desperate for him to breathe on his own.

She doesn't acknowledge as they slow and pull into an overhang and the light dims as she pulls back from Tony's still body and hits him again in the chest, oblivious to the tears streaming down her face and the blood on her lips from blood leaking from his nose. She strikes him again and again, and on the third strike his body spasms and he gasps in a breath, which turns into a weak wheeze. She pulls him up into her arms and she holds his limp form firmly as she rocks back and forth in relief as she cries, her thoughts a tangled mess…

Autumn rides her Chimera colored mare through the streets of Houston with her eyes scanning the traffic, pedestrian, animal and vehicular as she travels. Since the scene at the shop, she'd decided to restrict her hours and try and see if she can get ahead of whatever it is that has stirred up the man who had visited her. His presence had stirred up memories she'd buried away, especially since she'd subsequently moved to Texas which she had thought was out of sight, out of mind, beyond the reach of her past. Apparently she was wrong, and she needs to find out what kind of situation she's looking at and how serious it is. And in true family fashion, she intends to do so head on and directly, if not as noisily or violently as her brother would in her place.

She eases the horse to a halt and dismounts in front of the gates of the Temple, home to the city's and local area's Rabbis as well as to the largest collection of books and information she has ever seen in her life. And considering she actively collects books and loves libraries of all kinds, has a library at home and her store is essentially a library, but for sale instead of for loan, that is really saying something about the size and scope of this library. She walks her horse to the front gate which is overlooked by a large statue in the form of a minotaur standing twenty feet tall with a helmet covering its head, a golem. The head pivots and follows her as she approaches to pass through the gate, a shiver running down her spine, as it does every time she has to pass the guardian.

The golem shifts and widens its stance, blocking her path and she jumps back in surprise, her horse startling and pulling back on the reins as the inanimate object is now mobile. Autumn is baffled at the construction's action, raising her staff in one hand before her as she maintains the grip on her horse behind her. The golem shifts the axe it had resting on the ground to a two handed grip and holds it defensively before it, further startling the horse and confounding Autumn.

"My name is Autumn O'Connell, I am friend of the Rabbis," she says to the golem, unsure at the moment what else to do.

"Aahh, Ms. O'Connell," a familiar voice says from beyond the gate, and a black robed man of Jewish descent and with long curls of grey hair and blocky beard to match walks out from the front doors a dozen yards beyond the front gate. "A moment and I will arrange for you to pass."

She nods her thanks but stays ready as he weaves his hands and utters commands to the golem who shifts its stance and returns to its vigil.

"Yosif, what is wrong? It's never done that to me before," she asks him when he is finished and the construction returned to its guarding state.

"I am glad you came of your own volition, Autumn," he says as she walks past the golem into the courtyard. "It would have been unfortunate if we had to summon you for this."

"Unfortunate? Summon me?" she says, shocked now at this further turn of events. "I don't understand. I came to see you about a council I used know when I lived in New York."

"We are aware of them," Yosif says with a nod of his head, but not inviting her in further past the gate as they are now in the courtyard in front of the entry door. "They contacted us not long ago, shortly after the Khan Claimed the city, as a matter of fact."

Autumn stops in step as that fact slides into place and other pieces in her head start shifting around and falling into place as well.

"Oh… goddess…" she breathes as she looks around and sees that the three doors visible are opening and other rabbis are entering the courtyard.

Three or four years ago she would probably have stood there and continued to speak with them in an attempt to reason her way of the situation. Six months ago she would have shouted for help and tried to run away and escape as her first course of action, fighting not her first reaction to trouble. Now, though, after living with her brother for over a year she instead immediately assesses her situation and the conditions surrounding her before acting.

The courtyard is twenty yards across, with hard stone covering the ground and walling her in on all sides with the exception of the gate which is open but guarded by the golem and undoubtedly ordered to prevent unauthorized escape. Six other Rabbis are now with her outside, slowly moving around her with eyes fixed on her and none with hesitation in their gazes. She drops the reins of her horse and grips her staff with both hands, her eyes open and looking at her surroundings while her mind formulates what to do next.

She doesn't want to hurt any of these people, they are not her enemies, but now she realizes with a pang of emotion that neither are they really her friends either. Yosif reaches towards her with book in hand but she picks up and drops the end of her staff hard onto the ground with a solid clack of iron on stone before he finishes the movement. A ward three feet across and rising up over her head materializes around her as strands of paper reach out from the book, edged in black and growing in width to resemble thick ribbons as they snap out at her. The ribbons wrap around her ward, pressing in on it as similar ribbons whip out from the other rabbis and wrap around the ward as well. She grits her teeth as the pressure against her ward reverberates back to her as she pulls a stone from her wristlet and pinches it between her fingers, pulling the spell stored within it.

With a pulse of magic her grip turns electrical and thrums into the staff and beyond into the ward, the ribbons cocooning her darkening and burning away in a pair of heartbeats. She blinks against the sudden flash of light and can see that three of the Rabbis are repeating the process, sending more ribbons her way as the other four have opened their books and are working on another form of attack. She ducks low and breaks the ward while lunging and rolling towards the closest Rabbi, ten feet away, the ribbon passing over her as she does. She rises and swings the staff upwards into the man's groin, to which he crumples to the ground in pain and incapacitated by the iron shod bronze weapon striking him solidly.

She turns and speaks a command word while swinging the staff, pushing magic into another charm on her wristlet and with a hum of power the open books in the Rabbis' hands smoke then burst into white, divine flame. She turns in time to see the golem pull back with his axe and to deflect the mighty blow from it away from her enough with her staff to only send tremors through her body from the force of the blow as she staggers back. She ducks and rolls again to the side as her brother had taught her and insisted she train on again and again as a reflexive defensive measure that is now proving its worth.

That training means she rises into a practiced stance with the staff before her as she raises her left palm to the golem, the appendage closest to her heart, and she pulls the spell from a clay charm on her necklace. The charm crumbles as she hits the stone minotaur with a powerful but localized null spell, causing it to stop in mid swing in an attempt to cut her in half. She stumbles back and blinks against the drain of magic in her system as she looks around at the Rabbis, three of whom have pulled scrolls from there robes and are unrolling them.

Cursing mentally, she raises the staff and swings it down to the ground as though swinging a club and channeling another charm, causing a resounding boom of sound and a circle of force out from the impact point, sending all those around her back and to the ground, cracking and breaking the minotaur statue. Her opponents dazed and off balance, Autumn turns to the gate and runs away, escaping into Pegasus way and away from those she had once counted as friends and allies.

Richard walks up to Autumn's store leading her horse, four other shapeshifters with him, one an Agogite and the others from his security teams. He gestures and they fan out from where they had walked behind him, two leaping up and onto rooftops while the other pair circle the building by ground. He waits for a moment for them to search and the Agogite who had gone to the roofs appears and signals to him in the hand signals of the Horde. He replies with a wave and ties off the horse in front of the store before approaching the once again repaired door, again with glass but with more than ornamental bars. He pulls out his keys and opens the locked door that has a CLOSED sign on it, using his own magic to deactivate the ward as he enters the shop. He closes and locks the door behind him, activating the ward behind him and walks towards the back kitchen, where he can sense his sister is at.

He pauses in the doorway as the scent of the room hits him and he frowns at his sister, sitting at the table with her cloak lying on the floor as she sits at the kitchen table, heavy crystal glass in her hand and a half empty bottle of Firefly sweet tea liquor. He walks over slowly as she turns her head slightly towards him and looks up at him from lowered brows, then back down at the half melted ice in the empty glass.

"I really want to blame you for this," she says with a slight slur to her words, pulling the bottle closer and pulling the stopper.

"How much have you had?" Richard asks as he grips the bottle before she can pour more alcohol for herself and she grunts as she tries to fight to upend the bottle but cannot match his strength.

"Dammit, let go!" she snarls at him angrily, jerking it a few times then letting go with a huff, rising and turning to a cabinet to find another.

"What happened?" he asks, calm and patient, knowing she'd hate him if he told her he already has a few possible things on his list of what could cause her to do this.

"What I should have known would happen when I agreed to come here," she says with scowl, shaking her head and turning back towards him with a bottle of Amaretto in hand and pouring it into her glass. "I got pulled into your world, that's what happened. I got involved, and I helped out, because you're family, and that's what we _do_ , we help each other."

She takes a deep quaff of her liquor and leans back on the counter and points at him with the glass, "You never apologized, y'know that? It took me years to realize that, even when you were coping and in that dark place after you killed Dad, you never apologized. Not to Mom, not to us, either. Not once."

"I know," Richard says after a moment when it appears she wants a response from him, leaning against the opposite counter and setting down the bottle he'd taken from her.

She snorts and points at him with the glass again, sloshing some out of it, "See? Still not apologizing. I know you feel remorse, so why don't you say it?"

He tilts his head at her, trying to piece together where her head is, and answers her truthfully.

"It won't help," he says with a shrug. "And it's a lie. I didn't apologize then because I hated him and I wasn't sorry, in my mind he earned what happened to him, he deserved it. When I matured and got past the hate, and a part of me did feel bad for having killed the man who brought me into this world, and even if he did a shitty job of it, he did raise me, set me up to be the man I eventually became."

"A part of you," she says, pulling the glass from her lips and another drink. "And the rest?"

"Saw that part as misplaced loyalty," he says with a twist of his head and a frown. "I'm not sorry I killed him, I'm sorry that it took me so long to do it myself. And even though I loved Mom, I wish she had been stronger and gotten us out of there, instead of forcing me to fix the problem."

Autumn snorts again, topping off her glass and walking carefully to the chair at the table again, "That's all he was, huh? A problem to be fixed?"

"In hindsight… yeah," he says with a nod. "What happened today? I haven't seen you drunk since that night you graduated High School and that jerk you promised me not to hurt had dumped you for another girl in your class."

She takes a deep breath, slowly closing her eyes in an effort to collect her jumbled thoughts and opens them to look at him as she speaks with a deliberate tone of a drunk who is trying to sound sober and reasonable.

"I was visited by someone I trained with when I first learned magic in college. It did not go well," she adds with a shake of her head. "I went to the Temple to ask for information on him and the people he works with. The Rabbis attacked me, not sure if it was to kill or capture, but…"

She pauses, looking down at the glass again, swallowing hard as she looks at the liquor in the glass.

"They betrayed us," he says firmly, and she looks up at him, blinking in surprise.

"They betrayed _me_ ," she corrects him, then shaking her head. "The other magic users are now aware of what I can do. They won't let me stay independent anymore. They want to put a control on me, to make me play ball in their game, not outside it."

"If they betrayed you, they betrayed _me_ ," Richard clarifies, stepping forward and placing the knuckles of both hands on the table firmly as he leans forward and locks his gaze with hers, the steel of the right hand clanking loudly on the surface.

She frowns at him with narrowed eyes and raises the glass to her lips, "I so want to punch you in the face and then you say that and I want to hit you with the bottle instead."

He smirks at her, reaching across and taking the glass from her, which she keeps her lips on as long as possible to get the last bit she can from it, leaning across the table and some spilling on it.

"You're drunk," he says firmly, putting the bottle on the counter.

"No. Shit. Sherlock," she says, leaning back and putting both hands noisily on the table.

"It's time for bed," he says, rounding the table to get her on her feet.

"Hrrmph," she says, turning and taking his arm, swaying as she does and blinking. "I need to find my horse, first. AppleJack is out there somewhere and I need to find her…"

"I brought AppleJack here, she's fine," Richard says, one arm around her waist and supporting her weight while pulling her arm over his shoulder.

"Oh, good," she slurs, blinking then looking up at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. "Y'know this is all your fault, right?"

"It's always my fault," he says with a small shrug.

"Just don' you forget tha'," she says, blinking hard to stay awake but passing out before he has her tucked in bed.

"Like you'd ever let me forget," he says softly as he leaves her snoring in her room.

Tony wakes up with a start, a blinding headache and the thumping of his own heartbeat in his head drowning out all other sensations for what feels like an eternity but is only about a minute. When he manages to open his eyes, he finds he is alone in a dingy hotel room with Maddie sitting in a chair next to his bed, a frown on her face as she watches him. The room is lit only by the light drifting through the crack between the slanted shades over the window, and he turns his head away from the light as his body reports that it is exhausted and sore.

"How long was I out?" he asks, pushing himself to a sitting position, causing his head to swim and spots to dance in his vision, holding his head in response.

"We escaped yesterday morning," Maddie says with concern as she hands him a cup of water with a straw in it. "You had me worried."

"Shit," he says with a frown, then drinking the entirety of the cup down before handing it back to Maddie. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you."

"How did you do that?" she asks firmly, shaking her head as she frowns at him. "When you left you had to use your notebooks and try three or four times before you could complete a ward that wasn't blood based. That back there is something Aunt A might be able to do with the Staff of Babyon and her stored spells. How did you do _that_?"

He sighs and shifts his legs to the side, sitting on the side of the bed as he notes he's only wearing a light pair of pants from his pack. He pours another glass of water from the pitcher and drinks it down to stall answering and she continues to frown at him as she watches in silence, a patient hunter.

"I can't tell you that," he says with sigh to which she grits her teeth and growls low.

"Tony, you're doing shit that is bordering on impossible," she says, waving at the window, indicating what he did the previous day. "I called home and Aunt A is freaking out. Rick seems to have taken it in stride that you know what you're doing, but he always acts like that so I don't know if it's a show or what. I'm worried you made a deal or something to get these powers and that it's going to follow us home, that we're not safe."

Tony frowns, shaking his head slowly, "I can't—…"

" _Don't_ you say that you can't tell me," she snaps at him, cutting off his reply. "I'm your mate, I'll always have your back, but you need to trust me if I'm supposed to trust you. This cuts both ways. And after what happened yesterday, putting aside deflecting that energy bolt, you weren't breathing for three minutes afterwards! I had to mouth to mouth until you finally gasped on your own."

She's nearly hysterical at the end of it, and he reaches to her, pulling her into his arms as she starts to sob into his bare chest.

"I almost lost you again," she says through the gasps, her hands clutching his back desperately. "It was all my fault that you were pulled away from me and flung to the other side of the planet… and I only just got you back."

"Maddie, I…" Tony starts to say, but stops, not sure what, if anything, he can say to make her feel better, but he hopes that the truth is enough.

"I swore an oath in blood, bound by magic, not to tell anyone," he says tightly, wincing at holding back the rest of it as she looks up at him with pleading eyes. "I can't break that oath, or else bad stuff would happen," he says, feeling lame and inadequate.

Her brow furrows in worry and she holds him tight, burying her face in his neck.

"Promise me you didn't make a deal with the devil… _please_ ," she says, her voice desperate.

"I made no deals with any type of devil, I promise," he says, stroking her hair and hoping he's being reassuring enough. "It's complicated, but I didn't do anything evil to be this way, I promise."

She sniffs and looks up at him again with a tight frown, "I'm still not happy about this."

He sighs helplessly, "I'm sorry I can't fix that."

She sighs with a harrumph and kisses him firmly while pushing him back on the bed, pulling her t-shirt off, then holding him desperately, "Alright, time to change the subject. We've got the room to ourselves and the others are next door. They can wait until I'm done with you for us to continue the mission."

Tony doesn't argue as she presses against him and he kisses her fiercely with need in response.

Autumn groans as she rolls away from the light, pulling her blanket over her head and reaching for her other pillow to add more padding between her and the cause of her pain. Her head continues to throb and the cotton feel in her mouth tells her that water will help, so against the wishes of her protesting body and aching head, she pulls herself out of bed and puts on a robe with narrowed eyes. She spies a pitcher on the nightstand, sniffs it then drinks the water directly from the container, draining half of it, then leaving her room with it in hand as though it were a mug and not a large pitcher with a liter of water still in it. Walking down the stairs as quietly as she can she pauses in the door to the kitchen from the stairs, finding Richard sitting there with a newspaper in his hands reading, giving her a glance then returning to it.

"I had hoped that was a dream," she grouses as she walks past him to her ice box, retrieving juice and pouring a large glass of it for herself while sitting across from him. "What did I say?"

"Nothing I haven't heard before," he says as he folds up the paper and picks up the cup of tea he'd made for himself. "Except for the part about an old associate from when you started learning magic. Then that the Rabbis attacked you. Care to share?"

"There's a Council of Mages on the East Coast, that's Council with a capital 'C'," she says, making air quotes with a frown after taking a deep drink of her orange juice. "After I finished college and settled down on being a practicing Celtic Witch, that was the oversight for people like me. Those with no higher authority but ourselves or a small coven of thirteen or less who would live in the small communities in the Appalachians, from upstate New York all the way down to Georgia."

"I'm familiar with them," Richard says with a nod and frown. "I had a buddy in the Regiment whose family was having issues with them, territorial dispute. I went with him on leave and helped him sort it out. Native American tribe closer to the Great Lakes."

"I should be incapable of being surprised at this point, and yet I am," Autumn says with a shake of her head and roll of her eyes which she immediately regrets as a spike of pain lances behind her eyes at the movement. "You were an hour's ride or two away and you never thought to visit," she says dryly with a hand to her head and eyes shut.

"Be honest, if I'd shown up to your door your Junior year, would you have been happy to see me?" he asks, tilting his head to the side with raised eyebrows.

"Yes," she says with a snort. "Because I would probably have tried to hurt you, at the very least. I wasn't in a very good place at the time."

"I've gathered as much," Richard replies, taking a sip of tea.

"About that," Autumn says with a deep breath, holding her glass of juice in both hands. "You never say, 'I know' or some such. I now realize you allude to it. So I'm going ask, what do you know about my past that I didn't volunteer?"

Richard quirks an eyebrow at her, "You really want me to answer that?"

She takes a deep breath, "In honesty, I'm about to tell you everything, because I have to. Knowing what I don't have to repeat will save us both time. And at this point I'll just toss that data point into the pile of reasons why you frustrate and annoy me, even if it's pragmatically useful and reasonable."

"You studied on Practical Magic Applications your first two years, getting a specialized Associates of Arts in it," he says with a nod. "You then worked on Arcana Research and Focused Applications, earning your Bachelor's with Dean's list grades all the way up to your last semester, which you barely passed and knocked you out from earning Valedictorian status."

He pauses and glances at her with narrowed eyes, "You were studying to become a Sorceress, not a Witch, and a damn good one, too. Then something happened your last semester, judging from the info I have, probably a couple weeks before finals. I didn't dig further on that because I didn't have the data until years afterwards and the past was the past at that point."

Autumn quietly pours herself more juice as he speaks, not looking at him but her drink, not a time of her life she enjoys reflecting on.

"After that you moved on and shifted your focus onto Occultal Studies," he continues, "specializing in Wicca with a minor in Celtic and Norse Pantheonic studies, where your Master's Dissertation was entitled 'The Evolution of Celtic Deities with the Introduction of Christianity'. After that, you moved to upstate New York, away from college but not too far to be difficult to move on your limited budget, worked part time at a few shops in Albany until you were able to get a stake in your own store. You ran that until the incident with the Druids and I met you again."

"The Council didn't like me," she says simply. "I was unaffiliated and my background prior to becoming a witch was not what they considered conducive to the balance. They felt I was unbalanced because of my past, both because of our childhood events and then the road I walked in college until I got a wake-up call. I was always walking on thin ice."

"I'm guessing they generally left you alone because at the time they pegged you for a small time witch with no aspirations to greatness," Richard says with a tilt of his head. "They were wrong about your power set, since you had power words and they obviously didn't know that, or they would have kept tighter tabs on you and would have contacted you about moving into New York City or leaving the Appalachians."

"Yes, to all of the above," she says, setting down the empty glass from having drank her second glass of it and starting to feel a bit better. "I thought that I would be able to find out what their intentions were in sending that old acquaintance to visit me, but apparently that was a catalyst to get me to go to the Rabbis and have them deal with me. My money is on them having been watching me for the last months then when you Claimed the city they went to the Rabbis, fed them a story and the Temple acted accordingly, likely not knowing the Council provoked me into visiting the Temple."

"Hmm," Richard says as he raises his cup of tea and leaning back, contemplating the situation.

"Please share with the rest of the class," Autumn prompts him.

"The Rabbis are too powerful to ignore as an opponent," he says with a sigh. "And my ties with them, both political and financial, are deep, we've got leverage on each other and it's not a relationship either one of us can sever without severe damage to both of us."

"I don't understand," Autumn says with a frown. "I know you've helped them and vice versa, but you sound like it's more complicated than that."

"I created a Fortune 500 Company from a small Corporation that was in shambles in the course of a few years, sis," he says with a sour expression. "I didn't generate all that money on my own, there are investors, stock options, other Companies and Industries… it's very complicated. It's one of the reasons I bit the bullet and got that degree in Economics, I needed to understand the mechanics of the playing field I was thrust into by the Horde."

"Okay…" Autumn says slowly, thinking this over, comparing the complexities of running her own shop then trying to imagine a scope that ranged into a profit margin that would place him in the top 500 companies in America and having a hard time quantifying it.

"Yeah, see what I mean," he says after taking a sip of tea, standing and going to the sink to rinse it out. "That Conclave I have every month is not just the shapeshifter community beating its chest to law enforcement and other influential players in the area, it's a necessity that is in all but name the governing council of the region."

"That's why they talked so much about trade and regulations after you threw down against Roland and Claimed the city," she says, tilting her head at him.

"Exactly," he says with a nod. "And whereas before they thought I was doing this with known players helping me, everyone but the Norse and the Vohls were thrown a wild card to discover the scope of your power and ability, as displayed when you helped me Claim the area."

"We knew that before," she says with a frown and shake of her head. "I just didn't think the Rabbis wouldn't give me the benefit of the doubt if something bad happened or someone made an accusation against me."

"I see how you would feel that way," he says carefully, turning back to face her. "But you know as well as I do their history. How many times have the Jews been put on someone's genocide list? They have been persecuted for thousands of years and are just now starting to get a foothold after the Shift. Considering that Israel was practically wiped off the map after the Shift when all its neighbors took the opportunity of the chaos to overrun them, if they fail here in the US to maintain a foothold, their culture may well finally perish."

"It sounds like you've thought this through," she says with a wry smile. "No surprise there."

He shakes his head somberly, "My greatest fear isn't Roland coming at us directly, or the Azteka invading up from old Mexica. It's that Roland makes a deal with the Rabbis to make them part of his new empire, an offer they will likely take because he was there when their religion was founded, he was there when the Old Testament was written. He is actually part of their ancient texts."

"That's…" Autumn blinks for a few long seconds as she considers that. "That's scary. Like, really scary."

"Yeah," Richard admits. "That's why when I got a report that AppleJack wandered to the gates of the Bastion, I came here right away to follow up and find out what happened. We are in a delicate place right now in regards to the city's power structure. Until we settle down into the new agreements we've mostly set up, there's a big risk of destabilization."

"The cement's still dry and if someone shoves things it will make us weak, and maybe cause the whole thing to come down," she says, nodding with a frown.

"Exactly," he agrees, arms crossed.

"So what's the move?" she asks, looking at him.

"We set up a meet with the Rabbis," he says simply. "Or more precisely, _I_ set up the meet. I'm guessing you were less than gentle when they tried to take you down."

"I didn't kill anyone, if that's what you're implying," she says with a frown at him and shake of her head, then pausing to think. "At least I'm pretty sure I didn't. Though I did burn their personal spell books, some of their combat scrolls, and destroyed their minotaur golem at the front gate."

"And you say I go off the rails when I get mad," he says with a snort.

"I wasn't mad, I was defending myself," she says as primly as she can in her hungover state, which isn't much.

"Either way, this is going to be touchy, and probably expensive," he says with a frown of his own.

"Expensive? How?" she asks, frowning in confusion.

"Hate to sound racist, but they're Jews," he says with a shrug. "They have principles but they understand the world and accept it with a generally pragmatic view. This will probably cost me money for reparations, and once that's settled we can move on into any accusations or charges this 'Council of the Appalachians' have brought from the East."

"Sorry about all this," she says with a frown.

"Don't be," he says with a shake of his head and standing from leaning against the counter. "We knew something like this would happen. Now I go into damage control mode, and while I do that, you work a line on the Council, see if you can find out what the story there is and how we can try to get ahead of it, get inside their plans and trip them up, if possible."

"That is a plan," she agrees.

"Oh, I'm leaving four guards with you," he says as he walks towards the front of the shop.

"Rich…" she says, starting to argue.

"You were attacked by the Rabbis and almost taken down if what I can tell from your reactions is right," he says, pausing at the door. " _And_ you considered them your friends. Take it from someone who was left for dead by those he considered his brothers, you are not in top form right now. You need people around you that you can trust, so Will or Hermano will be in charge of your guards until this is settled."

She makes a sour face then nods reluctantly, "Fine. Only because it's Will and Hermano. They're good kids."

He snorts, "You're old, sis. They're twenty four."

She looks at him balefully, "You're not far behind me, little brother."

"But you're still ahead," he says with a smile as he walks towards the front. "Keep me posted, sis. I'll stop in when I can."

She takes a breath and pours herself another glass of juice as she processes her talk and starts to formulate a plan ahead.

Tony rides his horse with the others as they leave the local hot spot of wild magic in Taichung City's formerly industrial area that with the coming of the Shift had collapsed and flooded with deep, wild magic rather than the comparatively tame magic of the rest of the island. There had been one of the prisoners who had made it into their boat during the escape and while Ming drove the boat and Maddie had performed CPR, Luang had gotten him to help them get ashore and find someplace to hide. Whereas in the US and most other places in the world the areas in cities that have been claimed by wild magic is unoccupied due to being inhabited by monsters, outlaws and fanatics, here where magic always holds sway it is inhabited instead by the poor and the desperate. The hotel they had spent the last two days in were on the outskirts of that zone and the effects of wild magic had meant that whomever had Claimed this land wouldn't be able to sense where they are, only that they had entered the city then gone into the wild district.

They had left the hotel, purchased horses with currency gained through trading of one of the jewels Tony has in his pack, his and Maddie's packs and equipment all they have from the ship incident. Using the currency had been risky, but it gave them an influx of cash for them to buy mundane equipment for Bagira, Luang and Ming as well as a basic spellcaster's kit for Ming. They'd left the wild area of the city of over a half a million people and gone east up into the forested hills towards Taroko, where Tony is supposed to deliver the scroll to a Buddhist temple. They'd started out at a canter from the city and are now at a walk as the incline has increased and the horses had started to tire, but they are likely out of immediate reach of whomever Claimed the city behind them.

"Are we still in the Claimed area?" Luang asks, looking at Tony from his horse, riding beside him.

"We are in _a_ Claimed area, but I don't know if it's the same or someone else's," he says with thought, replying in Chinese as Luang had asked his question in that language. "I only remember crossing boundaries a couple times since I've had this ability, and it didn't seem to feel any different."

"We will remain vigilant and continue without stopping, then," Luang says with a glance at the rest of the party, Ming and the lead and Bagira bringing up the rear. "Mobility is our ally in this, I believe."

"The island's only fifty miles or so across," Maddie adds, her words chunky and accented but understandable, riding her horse just behind Tony.

"We should arrive just after nightfall, then," Tony says, looking at the lowering sun behind them in the west.

Tony is leading the line of riders down the side of the small mountain and deeper into the forest covering the eastern side of the island nation of Taiwan. Maddie is right behind him, then Bagira, Ming and Luang bringing up the rear, he leading as he was giving instructions on how to enter the Temple's land without endangering himself or his companions. Night has settled on the land and they all peer intently and cautiously into the darkness, knowing that things lurk in the dark and unknowing of their origins. The entire group's heads rise as a roar pierces the night and their horses shy at the sound, tired from the ride and only barely trained to handle shapeshifter riders, not battle trained.

"What is it?" Luang asks, looking around and placing the sound coming from to their front left, less than a kilometer away.

"Nothing I've ever heard before," Tony says with narrowed eyes, pulling his half mask from his face to drink in the night fully.

"I hear screams, human screams," Maddie says as faint sounds reach them now.

"We have to help them," Tony says immediately, dismounting from his horse, grabbing the reins and tying them to a tree.

The others don't argue but do likewise, stripping saddlebags and packs off to sling hastily for carrying. That done, Tony's pack carried by Bagira as he is the slowest as a human and the others will still have to slow down for him to keep up as they run, he starts to head into the trees and underbrush towards where the sounds had originated from. Maddie stops him with a hand on his shoulder and signals that she should lead, then hands him a bundle of cloth from her belt.

He holds it up and smirks at it, then pulls the thin cloth mask over his face and features, hiding the glow of his scars, thinner fabric over the eyes, nose and mouth minimizing it's effect of dampening his senses. He takes a deep breath and smiles under it, reminded of times past and runs after the others in the night, another ghost in the night as they run to battle.

Tinzin rides high on his horse as he draws back on the large compound bow in his hands, firing another arrow at the monster thrashing in the open field. He is one of a band of thirty dispatched from his master's household to track down and kill the beast, a creature brought into this world by dark magic and a stain upon the land from the north. He wears traditional Japanese leather armor for mobility and flexibility, dark brown with red silk fabric to add protection from claws and blades, his long katana and shorter wikisashi tucked in his belt on one side and a tanto blade on the other. Three other warriors fire as he does, only one penetrating into the creature's hide, dense and covered with thick, coarse yellow hair for protection from just such weapons.

The monster is twelve feet long with a body similar to a boar's, with three toed hooves and a head that is a cross between a wolf's and a crocodile's, a row of three yellow eyes up either side of its blue scaled snout and with two sets of horns on its head, one pair running straight up like a goat's, the other two curling back in a spiral to the front like a ram's but spiked as an elk's. The thing's tail whips about it as it jumps and bucks in the large field that had been planted with crops for the coming winter, kicking up dust and dirt to obscure it from view, the tail whipping out and taking another warrior from his saddle. The victim is flung away carelessly, reducing the band to ten now, trying to keep their distance to not get caught by the tail, but close enough to strike the monster and penetrate with their arrows as well.

The creature plants itself and charges out, its head down and barreling through a trio of mounted warriors, leaving braying and injured men and horses behind it. Tinzin, realizing he is now the senior among the remaining men, yells for them to give chase and the half dozen remaining warriors fall in behind him as he pulls his second to last arrow from his quiver. He rides up and to the side of the beast as it runs towards the tree line three hundred meters distant, drawing and firing at its right flank, in front of the hind leg and behind the front. The arrowhead finds purchase and the beast yelps a deep angry tone, flinching away, then turning and swinging its lower horns at his horse's head, crushing its skull and snapping its neck. Tinzin dives to the side, his helmet grazed by the swinging horn as he falls and dazing him, his limp form tumbling and landing hard on the soft soil of the tilled earth.

His tumble is halted by the dead body of his horse in front of him, narrowly missing landing on him, and he shakes his head in an attempt to clear it as he realizes he is alone on the field. He turns and pulls himself up the saddle of his horse to stand on battered legs as he looks across the dimly lit night to see the monster turn before reaching the treeline and knocking down two more of his warriors. Tinzin grunts and pushes away from the dead horse and starts to walk then trot painfully towards where his men are still trying to cripple or kill the beast, who stops and takes notice of his movement. He does not stop or falter, but draws his katana smoothly and rises it high as he runs, a calm settling over him as he approaches his enemy, his foe, the future clear before him as he thinks his last words to himself.

 _D_ _uty is heavier than a mountain, death is light as a feather…_

His course determined he prepares to dodge to the right and cut across the monster's neck down the side but before it is close enough for him to execute his last attempt at victory, a white and black striped blur of motion tackles the monster across the face, knocking it off course. Tinzin pauses for a moment to assess this new development, the movement of the monster and this new creature too fast to determine its origin or its intent, though undoubtedly in his favor. He starts to run forward again as a black and green blur passes on his right towards the monster and smaller creature, and this figure he recognizes. It is undoubtedly a were-wolf in animal form, though somehow with a green leather armor covering its body from neck to hindquarters, black fur against it as it runs towards the monster. Beside it is a huge great cat, a panther perhaps, its size belying it to be a shapeshifter as well as it runs beside the wolf towards the battle.

He shouts to his men to follow and assist the shapeshifters, recognizing now that the creature that had saved him was a were-tiger in warrior form who is now darting in and out on the monster, keeping it distracted. Quickly, in an obviously trained method, the three shapeshifters are circling the monster, baiting it and attacking it in turn, a wolf pack tactic. Where his men had died in the attempt, their reactions too slow and unable to heal or deal significant damage to the monster, the shapeshifters dart away before the monster can hurt them. Within a dozen breaths of the three attacking the creature the thing's tail is pulled tight then ripped away by a ferocious attack by the huge wolf, who is knocked away by a huge horn for committing to the attack. The wolf's armor is impressive, though, as it simply shakes its head and rejoins the fray, baiting the monster with the others once more.

Tinzin pauses at a few dozen yards away from the fight, ordering his men to do the same and fire arrows at the creature, not their new found allies. They fire arrows into it, but they have little effect compared to the rents of red furrows being opened on its sides by the shapeshifters. After a battle that seems far longer than the mere thirty seconds it actually takes, the beast is spinning and stomping slower than before, every time it tries to run away it meets a claw across its snout. His remaining men report they have no arrows left and Tinzin orders them to dismount, wishing not to dishonor himself or his men by shying from battle when others would still fight.

"Hold," he hears a voice call from behind him in Chinese, and he turns to see two human figures run to him from the dark field, seeming to have come from the same place in the woodline as the shapeshifters, but only arriving now as they are on foot and slower.

"Who are you?" Tinzin demands, sword held ready at his side.

"I am a friend," the man says, the other with him a female.

The man is of average size and build, wearing partial leather armor across his arms and shoulders, hunting silks for the rest of his attire, sturdy boots on his feet. He has short blades on his belt, quiver on his back and a bow in hand, the woman beside him of Han descent with a long sword on her hip and what he recognizing as items for casting spells on her belt. Most distinctive of the pair is that the young woman, likely only twenty or so, has dark pink hair illuminated only slightly in the dark, and the man has on a black mask that covers his entire face with dark grey splotches painted down the sides of the center, giving him a ghostly skull demeanor.

Without another word the man draws an arrow, seats it, draws and fires faster than Tinzin can react, the shot darting past him and he turns in surprise at the action. He turns and sees the arrow sticking out of the top right eye socket of the monster a dozen meters away, having tried to run from the shapeshifters at the cluster of vulnerable humans. The monster gallops twice then falls heavy on the ground and slides a pair of meters until it is only six feet from Tinzin, who backs up with his sword at the ready. He and his men have reflexively formed a circle among themselves as the only remaining possible threat are these newcomers, and they are not familiar to them.

"It looks like you have men in need of medical care," the man in the mask says, glancing back at where most of the warriors had fallen in the fight. "We have a couple trained in the healing arts, we can help."

"Who are you? Why should we trust you?" Tinzin asks, focusing mostly on the masked man while the remaining shapeshifters move and gather behind him, not around Tinzin and his men.

"I am here to deliver a message from the Dali Llama to the Llama of Taroko," he replies as he slings his bow across his back and pulling a scroll from his belt, displaying the slightly glowing seal in the night, confirming his claim.

Tinzin pauses as he reads the official seal and marking, then nodding assent to his men and sheathing his sword before bowing, "My apologies, sir, I did not realize you were a messenger for the Great Lord."

"No apologies necessary," he replies, tucking the scroll away, then pulling off his mask, to which Tinzin's eyes widen in shock at the sight of the multicolored magical energy cascading across half his face, barely recognizing the scarred flesh beneath it. "I'll send my people to start collecting your wounded in one place, then Ming and I will start healing those we can."

"I noticed how you subtly took charge of the group back there," Maddie comments in English as she pulls her jeans on next to him as he holds his left hand over the chest of an unconscious warrior, mending the wounded internal organs so as to not be life-threatening.

"They don't know you guys, and as much as I have no issue with shapeshifters, not all people feel that way," he says with a shrug, slowly shifting his hand to the man's midsection, rainbow light drifting down to the man's body. "Besides, I'm the messenger, so to them I should automatically be in charge of a group like this. Ask Luang, he'll tell you."

"Not arguing," she says with a shake of her head and a small smile as she bends over and kisses his cheek. "I just think it's cool to see you out of your shell, that's all. How long do you think this delivery will take, now that we're here?"

"Hopefully only a day or so," he says as he draws back his hand and moves to the next man, two of six he is working on, Ming working on the other six survivors. "You know as well as I do that they love their ceremonies and traditions here, there will be tea, polite thanks, so on and so forth. I'll try to get us out of here as quickly as possible, I'm worried about Tim and Kris on the mainland, they don't like round eyes in general and those two stick out."

"No argument there," she agrees, taking her gladius from the pile of gear they'd retrieved from the treeline where they had left it when they shifted form. "I'm going to help Luang and Bagira with making some litters to get these guys to the village. How far did he say it was?"

"If we leave before midnight, we'll get there by dawn," he says, glancing at the moon above. "They'll send someone to get our horses or they'll turn up later, we won't be able to get them here to help with this in any reasonable amount of time."

"Okay," she says, tugging his arm before he starts helping the next wounded, turning him and kissing him firmly on the lips for a slightly lingering kiss before going to help the others.

Maddie squints into the light of the rising sun as they exit the trees, the trail they followed from the field the fight had taken place zig zagging next to a river that leads to the South China Sea. The colors against the low hanging clouds are a beautiful blend of orange and pink, and reveals the dark red tiles of the village below, in the center of which is a many tiered building for the local lord and another more modest structure beside it for the local temple. She smiles as she looks to Tony, who grins back at her in return, his face uncovered at the insistence of the leader of the men they had rescued, Tinzin. She shifts over and hops up, placing a quick kiss on his cheek, this the first time she's ever seen him in the light of dawn with no mask on.

"What was that for?" he asks, smiling at her and taking her hand in his as they walk beside a horse that has a stretcher behind it with three men on it.

"You're just so damn handsome, that's why," she says with a grin, wrapping an arm around him.

He leans over and places a kiss on her head, then looks towards the three dozen houses of the village and the larger building of six tiers of traditional styled tile roofs. They are part of the procession of horses dragging litters of the dozen wounded, the lightly injured half dozen walking among them with Tony and his group of five. As they come nearer the village and under the double topped arch that marks the beginning of the unwalled village the people living there come to the side of the road, kneel and bow in respect as they pass. Maddie is reminded of a similar practice Rick had enforced back at the Bastion, that whenever they would return from a major battle or contract, everyone at the Bastion would pay their respects. She wonders how much of that he borrowed from here or elsewhere.

They are second in the order, Tinzin beside the lead horse and them beside the horse behind it, the horses on the right and they walk on the left. They walk down the cobbled streets, and Maddie notes the people are well dressed and do not look haggard or bothered, in fact she feels as though she has stepped back in time to hundreds of years ago, were it not the occasional presence of a magical engine or item that places them in the current time period. They arrive at the gate to the low fence that marks off the largest building and temple from the rest of the village, and men there rush to the horses' sides to care for the wounded. Tony and his group follow Tinzin as they approach the main building, where a cluster of people await them, two of them distinct in their contrasts to each other and the few others behind them.

One is indisputably the local Great Llama, with tan robes over his slightly plump middle aged body and bald head, a peaceful smile reflective of his Buddhist beliefs plain on his face. The other is a far older man, likely in his sixties or seventies, in good health but with wrinkles and some spots of age high on his head and dressed in the light red color similar to the guards but with more embroidery among it. The older man approaches and Tinzin bows low before giving a brief account of his hunt of the monster, then turning to Tony and his party as he finishes it.

"Were it not for Anthony and his companions, we may not have defeated the monster," he says plainly, though Maddie can hear the undercurrent of shame beneath his words.

"I thank you for your assistance, traveler. I am Jung, local Magistrate," the man says, bowing slightly to Tony, his eyes never leaving the colorfully scarred side of his face. "For what purpose do you journey to my lands? I am a minor and unimportant man, I pay my taxes and manage my people with the hope of simply enjoying a humble life."

Maddie is somewhat surprised at the traditional tone and phrasing of the words, spoken in Chinese, no accent from the older man but obviously a less used language for Tinzin.

"I am here on a mission from the Dali Llama himself, and I have traveled far and risked many dangers to deliver my message from the Palace of Lahsa itself," he says, stepping away from her and forward, removing the scroll from his belt and holding it up to the Llama beside Jung.

The monk raises his eyebrows in surprise, then bows low while taking the scroll from Tony's hands, turning and looking at Jung with a meaningful expression.

"I insist you stay with me tonight, and join me in feast tomorrow," Jung says. "You have helped my warriors rid my lands of a dangerous creature, and brought news from distant allies."

"I would be honored to be your guest, Lord Jung," Tony says with a bow of his own, hoping the depth of the bow is right, not something he had really practiced since accepting this mission.

Jung returns into the large building with three of the retinue, obviously advisors of some sort in traditional local attire, while the Llama turns and goes to the temple with another monk at his side. Tinzin turns and bows again to Tony, then gestures them to follow him, leading them to a side entrance and into the large building and to a hallway that leads them to a series of sliding doors. Maddie finds it interesting that even with technology and better materials available they have decided to use the rice paper material and simple wood construction rather than steel and glass, wondering at the reasoning behind it as she follows Tony's lead and removes her shoes before entering the building. Tinzin bows and introduces them to another man, Bolin, who will show them to their rooms and will help them with any needs or requests while they stay here as guests.

Soon she is walking around the simple twenty foot by fifteen foot room with the low, wide sleeping mat for two on it, low tables to the side with small ornamentation and a pair of storage chests. There is also a small table with cushions to sit on and some pillows to lean back on, if she remembers right. She lowers her pack and saddlebags next to one chest as Tony does the same to another, both looking around and categorizing their surroundings.

"I think we can ask for a bath, then take a nap before this afternoon," Tony suggests, glancing around then at her.

Maddie's eyes light up and she smiles slyly at him, "Do you think we could get a private bath?"

Tony blinks and his mind locks up at that suggestion and the images that follow it into his head, "Uh…"

She grins at him and steps up and kisses him on the cheek, "I scrub your back, you scrub mine?"

Tony stammers, caught off guard and Maddie giggles at him, leaning up and kissing him on the lips, "You're adorable sometimes, you know that? I guess you'll take a rain check, then?"

He watches her go, blinking and confounded as she walks out the door to the room to go find someone to show her to the bath. He glances down at his gear then after the retreating and swaying backside of his girlfriend before hurrying after her, barely remembering to close the door behind him as he does.

Autumn sits on the porch of the large house in the middle of the field where wild flowers, herbs and other various and exotic plants grow rampant, a hundred yards or so of the short vegetation before trees rise high into the sky. The park had once belonged to the Black Vohls but had been claimed and repurposed by the White Vohls and Stan, her boyfriend, had taken residence here to help renew the life in the area. She rocks gently in the chair as Stan comes to join her from inside, wearing jeans, brown boots and a plain white t-shirt, his short brown hair and close cropped beard with specks of white in it. He hands her a cup of tea and sits in the rocking chair beside her, leaning back and blowing on his own hot beverage of the same.

"Thank you," Autumn says, sipping her cup carefully so not to burn her lips. "So, what have you heard?"

"We were approached the same day you went to the Rabbis," he says with frown of his own. "I tried to call, but the magic had knocked out the phone lines. They sent a guy that I would categorize strongly as the shady type. Not saying he didn't have power, but I didn't trust him from the get go."

"Gray hair, faded black robe, no staff, in his fifties?" she asks, and he nods, a question on his face. "He's the one that showed up to my shop and spooked me into investigating at Temple."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to help," he says with a frown.

"You're sweet," she says, reaching over and taking his hand in hers with a smile. "But I can fight my own battles."

"Not saying you can't, but you don't have to," Stan says with a soft smile of his own, rubbing his thumb over her fingers.

Autumn takes a deep breath and nods, "I know. It's hard to ask for help, that's all."

"I'm guessing that Richard didn't give you a choice?" Stan says, gesturing with his chin at where Hermano, her Hispanic were-leopard bodyguard is playing fetch with her family's Dragon Shepherd Max, using a small log for the stick.

She snorts, "Didn't even ask, just said it was going to happen. Gave a few points about why and I was tired of fighting."

"Well, it sounds like this 'Council' of yours has sent this guy to send the message, and maybe more," Stan says. "What does the Khan think about it?"

"He's doing damage control with the Rabbis, I'm starting to hunt down leads," she says with a frown of thought. "He's too new at having land attached to him to accurately feel intruders, Odin says he'll be able to sort it out in a week or so, but that'll be too late, I think."

"I don't think he'll come back to the Vohls," Stan says with a thoughtful frown. "He's been in town long enough and visited enough of the players in town that he has to know we're together."

"On the other hand, we may get lucky and he visits the Vikings now," she says with a glance at him.

Stan snorts, "If he tries to tell Odin or Thor what he told us, you'll probably get a chance to see him in chains, if he's not dead."

"Odin wouldn't kill him," Autumn says with a shake of her head. "Maim or cripple him, yes, but not kill him. He knows there's information to gain from him."

"So I presume that's your next stop, then?" Stan asks, tilting his head at her questioningly.

"Yes," she says with a deep breath, breathing in the steam from her tea.

"Let me grab my robe and my staff, then we'll get you a horse from our stables," he says, rising with his tea in hand.

"You don't have to come," she says with a shake of her head at him.

"No, I don't, but I want to," he replies with a smile at her that makes her heart speed up as he leans over and kisses her gently on the lips.

As he turns and walks to the door, she calls after him, "What's wrong with AppleJack? I thought you liked my horse."

"He's fine with shapeshifters, but you need a warhorse, in case we have to mix it up, and my dark cousins left a small herd of the beasts on the land when I came and took it over," he reasons, calling over his shoulder, and she simply nods and finishes her tea.

Tony stirs and turns his head to look at Maddie tucked into his side in the late afternoon light, her mouth open and spot of drool on his shirt trailing onto him. He smiles and wishes he had a camera to keep a picture of it, but the one in his mind will have to do for the time being. He leans over and kisses her gently on the forehead and tries to extricate himself from her, but she only wraps her arm and leg around him more as he tries to leave. She closes her mouth and nuzzles against his chest, above the moist spot, purring against him.

"What are you doing?" she asks drowsily, wrinkling her nose then wiping the corner of her mouth on his shirt.

"Getting up," he says, smiling at her and trying again to rise.

"Nope," she says with a shake of her head, holding him down with little effort.

"Yes," he says, playing his fingers across her ribs to which she yelps and squirms in his grip while he chuckles.

While she thrashes and grabs at his fingers, he shifts and then rolls out of the bed and out of reach, causing her to frown at him with narrowed eyes.

"Cheater," she says with no heat, pulling the covers around her again.

He continues to chuckle as he pulls off the t-shirt he'd worn to bed with the light baggy pants provided in the room and begins to dress into his cleaned gear and washed clothes.

"I'm going to go visit the Llama, hopefully get this whole thing sorted out so we can go once we finish dinner tomorrow," he says, strapping his kurki to his thigh and DrageBien in its smallest form to the small of his back, what he considers it's punch form.

She rolls so she can watch him dress, "I'll get with the others, grab something to eat and find wherever it is they train in this compound. Ming should have word from Kris on how he and Tim are doing on the mainland."

"I'm surprised you brought him along," Tony comments, adjusting the kurki.

"Didn't have much of a choice," Maddie says with a frown. "Picking the team was actually a political process for Rick. We had to take him to keep the wolves happy. The Bouda wanted to send someone, but Heavy won the toss on that, which is why Kris came along, and Cat obviously had heavy sway since Ming and Luang are familiar with the region, dialects and cultures."

"And there was no way you were going to be left behind," Tony adds with a smirk at her, moving over to kneel beside her and give her a kiss.

"Nothing could have stopped me," she says after the brief kiss and gripping the front of the silk top he wears.

"I never doubted it," Tony replies, running his fingers gently down her cheek as he gazes into her brown eyes. "I love you."

"I love you, too," she replies, giving him a quick kiss before letting him go and he goes to find the Temple.

Tony walks quietly onto the hardwood floor, his bare feet silent as he treads softly across the open space of the main temple floor. He looks around and sees the similarities to the temple in Lahsa, statues of the Buddha with incense burning and giving a distinct smell to the open area and allowing the light entering to be portrayed as distinct shafts piercing across the air.

"Welcome, traveler," the Llama says from where he is seated at the far side of the open area, the space twenty yards across and thirty yards from the entrance to the large statue he is seated in front of.

"Greetings, Llama," Tony says, stopping and bowing in greeting.

The Llama is facing Tony and has the scroll open on a low table before him, and he smiles a peaceful smile at him, ten yards between them.

"I understand the circumstances which brought you to me, and you have my sympathy," the Llama says, bowing his head. "And though I know you wish to be on your way, there is a task I must ask of you, though you are not required to perform this duty."

"Ask," Tony says, mentally cringing at having another job to do before continuing on his way.

"There is a blight to the land, not far from here to our north, it is where that creature you faced came from," he says with a gesture in that general direction. "It is the latest, but is neither the first, nor will it be the last if this encroachment on our land is not eliminated. I would request that you go and remove that stain upon our lands, to free us from its danger."

Tony lowers his head in thought, knowing that the Lord of this area has lost nearly twenty men to that monster yesterday, and is likely low in the number of men he can spare. And he also saw how ineffective they were against the monster, though well trained to handle normal bandits and outlaws. The locals can't solve this problem, and to be honest, even if he had not been asked, he would have resolved this, just as he had stepped in when he heard the men fighting the monster.

"It would be my honor," Tony says with a bow, then turning and leaving the temple to find Maddie and the others.

"Dammit, Tony," Maddie says with a frown. "You were supposed to try and get us out of here sooner, not sign us up for a job."

"I cannot think of this as coincidence," Luang says, speaking in Chinese so that Bagira can participate in the conversation, as the group is sitting in the dojo Tony had found them in, sparring and practicing. "The Dali Llama picks Anthony to deliver his scroll to a village that is suffering from attacks it cannot stop. This is the reason you were sent here, and we will help you."

"The Llama couldn't know we'd come help you," Maddie counters, biting into an apple from a bowl on the table.

"The Llamas always know than a normal man could," Ming says in a slightly chiding tone. "They may send you on some odd task or errand, but they always have a purpose. They see currents in the web of life and the flow of magic that elude even the greatest seers."

"The blight he speaks of is less than a dozen miles to the north, just inside his territory," Tony says, gesturing that way. "We leave now, handle whatever it is, we're back for the feast tomorrow, then on our way."

"Fine," Maddie says with a sigh, picking up her sword from where she had it set down as they trained.

"Everyone grab gear for the mission, we will leave immediately," Luang says to the group, then at Tony. "Anthony, as this is your task, I place us under your leadership for its duration."

"I'm in charge, got it… no pressure or anything," Tony says with a sigh, uncomfortable with the idea, but accepting it.

"Relax, hon," Maddie says with a smile. "We've got your back. Let's go fix this blighted land."

Tony walks in the night with the others at his back, spread out and senses aware of their surroundings to a degree normal animals would envy at. Bow in hand and the others with weapons ready, they move silently through the night, the first part of their journey by horse and now, as they close to within a mile, they walk. Tony can feel the darkness of the land ahead, a hilltop that is slightly higher than the surrounding hills and rises of the land, and as they near it to a few hundred yards he signals a halt, the others circling around him and pulling security as he activates the charm that allows him to see in the magical spectrum and studying the land beyond.

Magic flows through everything, animals and nature as shades of yellow, human magic as blues, death as reds, combining to make the various colors of hundreds, thousands of shades in their combination of uses. He can see the dark red and blue ahead mixing into a malevolent purple on the hilltop ahead, a blotch whose tendrils work halfway down the slopes, the vegetation on the top are black and dead husks of their former selves. He studies the currents and flow, not a ley line as such, but more of the dark energy of the place having an effect on the surrounding area. He turns off the sight and gestures Luang ahead with Bagira, Maddie to stay close to him and Ming as they resume their movement towards the dark hilltop in the night.

As they ascend the slopes the group grows more tense and on edge, as there is no sound of nature or wildlife surrounding them, no chirping of insects or the rustle of birds, Tony can sense no life save their own as they cross from the living forest to that of the dead trees. He has his bow ready and his senses dialed up high, the full mask over his face like a second skin as he senses the movement of air and the underlying current that he can always feel, if not always in great detail. Luang gestures a halt as they near the top, the dead trees thinning out to an open field of some sort ahead, and Tony creeps low to the shapeshifter's side to see what he sees.

It is a dark field under the light of a partially clear sky and Tony narrows his eyes under his mask and he looks at a figure kneeling in the dark. Luang can tell the figure is a man with dark robes and long hair, but Tony's enhanced senses detect more, as well as a familiar taste of magic he doesn't need his charm to identify as he looks on. The sallow complexion, the sunken eyes and features as well as the paper thin skin over the curled and claw like hands tell him exactly what this creature is… a Lich. He glances at Luang and signals that it is an advanced, intelligent undead and to keep an eye out for others like it when he will attack in a moment.

Tony rises from their hiding place and the others fan out around him as he approaches the Lich at a jog, twenty yards away and protected by a dark red colored ward around him. Ming is reaching into her pouch to pull out ingredients to drop the ward without brute force as they approach, and the Lich looks up. The man looks starved, his eyes and features once Chinese but now desiccated and corpse-like, the formerly fine robes of a nobleman crusted with dirt and decay. The thing's eyes are different than the last Lich Tony encountered, though, this one's glows with a light purple luminance, and it speaks a string of commands in a language he doesn't understand when it sees them.

Tony pulls a black fletched arrow, pulsing power into the tip and fires, the arrow piercing through ward, then beyond into the Lich's open mouth. The thing blinks in surprise a splash of blood behind it showing that the arrow passed completely through it, and the ward shuddering and closing back up behind the arrow, redundancies built into it. Ming takes a knee by the ward, the edge of it a few feet from the creature inside, the others fanning around to protect her as Luang stands at her side, in case it drops unexpectedly. The Lich raises a hand and makes a complicated gesture, which causes dirt to erupt from three different locations in the field and Tony's eyes dart around as he assesses what is happening. Three spiders, each one's body the size of a large horse, have risen from the dirt, and judging by the wave of repulsive magic rolling off of them they are undead as well.

"One each," Tony says, running towards the closest of the spiders, Maddie and Bagira each running to another.

Tony draws and fires a red fletched arrow as he runs at the creature, but it moves impossibly fast, skittering to the side and the arrow misses it, striking a dead tree behind it which bursts into flames. The spider has closed the distance and Tony narrowly avoids being jabbed by a front leg as big around as his forearm, though the undead insectoid lifts and swipes him aside with the appendage quickly. The blow knocks the breath from him and as he flies through the air he slows his sense of time and gathers his focus while trying to adjust his landing. His bow was knocked from his hand and is arcing away from him, to the side, further towards the dead trees, and he is falling as he twists, landing and rolling while kicking up dirt and dead leaves.

He rolls to his feet with kurki in one hand and a short sword in the other, the undead spider already upon him, having followed him after its attack landed. He chops at the pair of descending legs that aim to skewer a prone and dazed opponent, chopping one off at the first joint, the second higher between the third and fourth joint. The spider does not react in pain, but only adjusts to shove the remaining stubs at him, while lifting another at him and backing away from him. He dives forward and spins while standing and shoving the sword into the underside of the carapace, cracking the chitin there, then slashing with a glowing and flaming kurki in his right hand.

The magic enhanced blade opens the underbelly, and Tony spins and chops across, removing the head from the body with the kurki while deflecting a stabbing leg from him. The body twitches and starts to fall in true death as he staggers to the side, the breath that had been knocked from him returning in a gasp and pulling him from the slowed sense of time he had felt a moment before. He stumbles to his knees as he regains his breath in painful bursts, looking around to regain his bearings and sense of his surroundings. As he does he feels the ward around the Lich drop, but not with the expected pop of Ming dropping it, but the creature dropped it intentionally.

Before he can try to call out or react otherwise the Lich has lunged forward with a foot long crystal bladed dagger in hand, aiming for Ming in her cross legged position. Luang intercepts the Lich and in a flurry of movement Tony cannot follow the green glowing dagger disappears into Luang's body a number of times and the were-tiger crashes to the side. The Lich follows the wounded enemy, black slashes across its chest not affecting him as Luang rises to his feet and roars at the undead while shedding human form, becoming a seven foot tall mix of man and tiger. The Lich spits blood from his torn mouth onto the blade in his hand and leaps at Luang as the were-tiger leaps at him in turn, the two meeting in mid-air and the larger warrior form shapeshifter taking the Lich to the ground.

Tony now has DrageBien in hand and is running to Luang to help him, but as he approaches Luang is thrown to the side, his body limp as the Lich rises, blood covering him that had belonged to Luang. As the undead turns to him, Tony pulls the blue fletched arrow and fires it with only a partially drawn string, the arrow penetrating but not exiting the torso, freezing the creature solid. Tony arrives and smashes his bow across the frozen undead hard, shattering the body across the field, leaving a purple haze which drifts for a moment before racing away as if caught in a heavy wind, though none blows on the hilltop.

"Luang!" he hears Ming yell, and he turns and runs to her side, noting that Maddie is helping Bagira finish her undead spider.

He slides to his knees as Ming rolls her cousin to his side, the shapeshifter in warrior form and gasping as his large furred hands fall to his side, his eyes wide and looking skyward.

"What can we do?" Tony asks, Ming far more experienced in treating wounded shapeshifters than him.

She shakes her head and pulls her pack from her side to her front, pulling out ingredients as she does, "Look at him and see if he has residual magic upon him."

Tony activates his charm and frowns at what he sees, "His aura has dark purple spikes in it, with black centers."

"The crystal blade, bring it to me," Ming says quickly as she pours holy water from a flask on the large gaping wound across Luang's stomach which is not closing as it should for a shapeshifter, four other deep puncture wounds around it.

Tony goes to the pile of what remains of the Lich and reaches for the long dagger used by the thing, covered in Luang's blood, but when he touches it his hand burns on contact and he cannot pick it up. He switches to his magic sight and can see a ward upon it, preventing certain types of people or creatures from holding it.

"It's warded, I think only undead can touch it without injury," he says, frowning then pulling his armored sleeves off quickly before pulling off a silk top. He uses it to sling and carry the blade back to Ming without touching it, at which time Maddie and Bagira join them beside their fallen comrade.

"The blade is cursed," Ming says with a glance as Tony dumps the blade beside her to inspect, then returning to Luang as she tries to wipe his wounds clean.

Maddie is doing likewise on the other side of the prone were-tiger who is now in his human form and the wound looking even worse than before with the edges of it black and veins of grey starting to spider from it. Luang suddenly shudders and convulses violently, Maddie and Ming trying to hold him down, but after a few long moments he stops, his body suddenly still in death, his eyes glazed over and looking skyward. The three of them stare in shock at his open eyes and slightly open mouth as the body of their friend and family in name or blood goes limp and the head lolls back loosely. Maddie grits her jaw and reaches out, gently closing the unseeing eyes then closing his mouth as well.

"Is the blight gone?" Maddie asks, still looking at Luang's still form, and Tony blinks himself from shock first, turning to look around with his magical sight.

"It's fading," he says with a frown, swallowing on a dry mouth. "He must have been the anchor for it. Once he was cast out, his hold was removed. In time, the land will retake this place."

"We need to take his body," Ming says, her voice cold and emotionless as she looks at the body of her cousin. "If he is simply buried he may be reanimated or warped into something else."

"We can burn his body in honor back at the village," Tony says, and Ming simply nods before taking a deep breath and putting away her tools.

Tony turns and reaches to her as she stands but Maddie has reached across the body and taken his wrist, shaking her head at him with a blank expression that he only sees in combat situations. He lowers his hand and motions to Bagira, who pulls a cloak from her pack and they wrap Luang's body in it, carrying their fallen comrade back to the horses and the village beyond.

"You know we're going to find that bastard's base and destroy his phylactery, right?" Maddie says, her voice carrying an undercurrent of icy rage.

"Never doubted it for a moment," Tony says, his voice hard and unyielding as well.

The village is silent in the mid-morning light as they ride into it, one horse carrying Luang's body over the saddle wrapped in a pair of cloaks. As before, the locals line the road, lowering themselves to the ground to kneel and bow as they pass with only the clop of the horses' hooves to break the silence. They pass the fence to the Lord's house and are again greeted by the Lord and the Llama, both with somber expressions as they dismount and reverently lower the Luang's body to the ground. Tony approaches the lord and without bowing or lowering his gaze he speaks to him in a flat, even tone.

"The creature on your lands are gone, but he took my friend and teacher from us in the fight," he says, the words hard but he does not hesitate. "He must be burned honorably, to prevent the evil that did this the ability to tarnish his memory by using his fallen body against us."

The lord nods his assent and one of his advisors leaves quickly to carry out the order.

"You have my deepest condolences," the Lord says, bowing to Tony. "You have the thanks of myself and my people for ridding our land of this infection."

"The infection has been purged, but what caused it escaped," Tony says with an undertone of anger now, Maddie, Ming and Bagira behind him with determined looks of their own. "We will find this evil and ensure it never returns."

"If the traveler would come with me, I have something to aid in your endeavor," the Llama says, solemn as well and then leading Tony to the temple.

They walk in silence to the temple floor, where the monk stops in front of the large statue of the Buddha, this one about twice life size, six feet tall while in its cross legged position. The monk pauses in front of the statue and Tony hears him say a few words of power he does not understand, and a deep golden light emanates from the center of the statue's chest. Tony watches as the Llama reaches into the light with one hand, leaning over the bent legs of the statue, and after a moment, he withdraws his hand and turns to Tony. He holds out to him a katana in its scabbard, the lacquer of the sheath a rich, deep brown and the woven golden tan cords of the handle a beaded texture Tony does not recognize.

"So you may successfully conclude your quest, young warrior," the monk says, bowing as he extends it to Tony.

He reaches out and takes the sword, testing the balance, then drawing the blade, noting the intricate silver tsuba guarding the handle shaped like a wolf on one half and a tiger on the other, the wrap of the handle firm in his grip. The blade is what catches his eye the most, as it is a fine blade by itself, but the wavy color near the edge is not a slight shadow like normal, but golden in shade, following the length of the sword to its tip. He swings the blade experimentally, then holds it down beside his leg, finding that the blade is the perfect length for him, nodding in appreciation as he does and turning to face the Llama once more.

"It is an excellent blade," he says after bowing and sheathing the blade.

"I thank you for your service," the Llama says with a bow. "I wish you fortune on your task and upon your journey."

Tony bows one last time then turns and leaves, tucking the sword into his belt as he leaves.

Autumn rides down the graded yet still dirt road in the late afternoon, Stan riding behind her as they approach the gates of Asgard, home of Odin and Thor, as well as other embodiments of the new Norse Pantheon. Somehow every time she visits the entire city, for it is no longer a village, somehow continues to impress her in some new way, as Odin is constantly adding improvements. The newest is that the outer gates enclosing the city are no longer the simple rough stone ten feet high, but is now twenty yards in height and improved stone masonry, having the appearance of marble. As they approach the twenty foot tall heavy wooden doors that are each wide enough for a wagon to pass through easily, the iron shod doors open on oiled hinges, the wood inlaid with silver depicting the great tree Yggdrasil, the Norse tree of life which cradles the nine realms

She fights not to stare at the doors, also a new improvement and something she wishes she could afford on a smaller scale to have at her shop for decoration. As they pass the gate she can see scroll work and runes etched into the silver, granting them some sort of enchanted improvement, and it is a difficult internal battle not to stop and sort out the spell or ward on the doors. The large man just inside the door, the current embodiment of Heimdal, nods to them in greeting as he then orders the four men with him to push the doors closed once more, and Autumn makes a note to stop on the way out if they have time to ask after the gate's enchantment.

They ride through the cobbled streets, and Autumn's mood lifts as the people who live in the town wave at them in friendly greeting, many of the shops in town getting their most specialized ingredients and supplies from her. After a few minutes they arrive at the courtyard in front of Odin's keep in the center of town, and she amends her previous categorization of Asgard as a city to a small city or large town, nowhere near the population of Houston, but if she were to guess the walls containing fifty thousand people or so. With that many people worshiping in the Norse fashion in so close a proximity to each other, she is not as surprised at Odin's ability to have embodiments of his pantheon here on earth as she had been at first.

"Greetings, Lady Autumn," a male voice booms from the main doors of Odin's keep, followed by its owner, Thor. Standing over six feet tall, wide of shoulder and with dark blond hair down to his shoulders, he has on his normal attire for this age, blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a blue leather vest with steel reinforcements, Mjolnir hanging from his belt.

"Greetings, Thor," Autumn says as she halts her horse and looks down at him from her saddle. "I come seeking your father's wisdom."

"Odin is below, attempting to provoke the Norns to speak," Thor says with a gesture over his shoulder. "We had guests this morning who wished to speak of you, and their words troubled my father greatly."

Autumn frowns, trying not to grimace, "I apologize, Thor, it is something of my past that has come to haunt me in my present."

"Indeed, so it seemed," Thor says as he takes the bit of her horse and strokes the chestnut warhorse's nose. "There were three who approached the gates, but refused entry by Heimdal, as he sensed a wickedness about them. They shouted foul words about you and your brother until I arrived at the gates."

"I don't suppose you were able to apprehend them?" she asks hopefully.

"No, I was not able to, the magic was down this morning, as you know," he says with a shake of his head. "But when they fled one of our marksmen was able to wound one and we were able to take a sample of her blood."

"Her?" she asks, curious who specifically was here, and if she knew the person in question.

"It was three women, a maiden, a mother and a crone, though they kept their distance from the gates and we could not get a detailed description from most on the walls, our shooter was able to get a good look," Thor says with a nod. "Come inside and I will have him summoned, and you can inspect the blood we collected."

Autumn nods and dismounts her horse, Stan doing the same and they enter the Asgardian Keep, a pair of servants in simple attire taking their horses to the stables.

Tony sits cross legged on the wooden walkway that surrounds the Temple, katana on the floor to his right, his bow on his left as he stares out from under the overhang at the smoldering and burning pyre in the courtyard. He had managed to get a few hours of sleep this morning and gotten up this afternoon as they were preparing to light the pyre, soaked with gasoline and piled with wood to burn, Ming had lit it herself. Ming stands in the rain, a light drizzle from a graveyard colored sky and fog drifting among the buildings, oblivious to it all as she stands and stares at the burning body of her Clan member.

Tony is pulled from his own dark thoughts as Maddie exits the temple behind him and sits next to him, leaning over and wrapping her arms around him.

"This is not your fault," she says softly, her head on his shoulder.

"He came here to find me," he replies with a hard frown. "I accepted this mission. He died while I led our group. I don't know how this could not be my fault."

"We all volunteered to come," Maddie says, raising her head to look at him firmly. "Volunteered. He and Ming both considered it an honor to be given the task to find and help the Khan's son return home."

"Dammit, Maddie," Tony says with an angry shake of his head. "I love dad, but I'm not the 'Khan's son'. I'm the human bastard he had before he was infected. I'll never be a shapeshifter, I'll never be Khan, and I'll never be a shapeshifter! Never!"

Maddie is taken back by his outburst, leaning back and looking at him with a worried expression, "What was that?"

Tony frowns tightly, looking down at his hands, one normal and the other multicolored and scarred, "I don't deserve any honors or special treatment. I know I'm better than average, and I'm getting better and better, but that 'honor' crap is politics. Luang was my friend, he helped me figure out how to sort out my senses when I got hurt and taught me Kung Fu. He didn't deserve to die for me."

Maddie frowns tightly but holds her tongue for a moment to let her own anger and frustration boil over, instead she takes a breath, lets it out and gently lays her head on his shoulder.

"He disagreed," she says quietly, Tony still brooding, but his thoughts stopping and listening to her quiet intensity. "All of us who came for you except for Tim are Agogites. Rick did that on purpose. The only truly political person on the team is Tim, the rest of us came because we understand."

Tony takes the bait, "Understand what?"

"We don't think, we act," she says, turning and looking at his eyes. "He didn't hesitate to jump in front of Ming and take the blade. He didn't regret it, just as I wouldn't, and neither would Ming, or Kris, and neither would Bagira or you. We act, and we don't regret the choice, because it is the right thing to do, to move forward and protect our brothers and sisters. And he saw you as a brother."

Tony closes his eyes and he face falls as he wraps her in a hug and he cries into her dark purple hair as she holds him in return, not crying but hurting all the same.

Autumn rides past the grounded longboat to the gates of the Bastion, her bag on her hip containing the blood sample collected by the NeoVikings as well as a sketch given by the shooter on their walls of the three witches, of which the maiden was the one wounded. The description the marksman gave was definitive on what they carried and their dress, making them unmistakable as witches of Gaelic traditions. Stan is beside her and they both slow their horses as they take note of the black streamers flying over the gate and the battlements, below the banners of the Horde. They pick up to a fast trot and the gates are opened once she gives the password to their challenge and enters the guarded walls.

Richard is exiting from the front door of his cabin, Tasha at his side as she rides up, a worried expression on her own face as a grim expression is on her brother's and his wife's.

"What is it?" she asks, knowing that it could be nothing good.

"Luang is dead," Richard says plainly. "They were on a mission in Taiwan, it went bad and though they accomplished the task, Luang was killed in the process by a Lich."

"Tony? Maddie?" she asks as she dismounts, worry foremost in her mind.

"Both fine, though mourning," he assures her, still frowning. "Ming reported in, said they're cremating the body then are going on a mission of vengeance."

"Vengeance?" she says, shaking her head. "Nothing good comes from vengeance, we need to talk to them. Get them to get out of there."

"Sis," he says firmly as she walks past him to the cabin and where they have moved the mirror to, pausing at his tone of voice.

She turns to him and narrows her eyes at him, "You approve, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," he answers truthfully, his own expression hard. "Call it vengeance or justice, the death of one of our own cannot be tolerated."

"They are on the other side of the damn planet!" Autumn says, waving to the west, the shapeshifters in hearing distance slowing their actions and their attention drawn to the argument. "It's bad enough they had to travel there, they still need to figure out how to get back. Haring off on another mission is not a wise decision."

"To hell with wise, it is _necessary_ ," Richard snarls in return, not backing down and his eyes flashing orange in the early night. "That undead abomination killed Luang, one of _**MY**_ people. If I could get there in time to help them I'd burn the whole damn island to ashes to avenge him."

"Dammit, Rich, that's your son out there," Autumn says, moving closer to him, lowering her voice but her tone still intense. "How can you be okay with him going into harm's way again?"

"Sis, as smart as you are, you still don't get it," he says with a frustrated shake of his head. "Every single one of them is my brother, my sister," he says, waving at the shapeshifters around them. "My sons and my daughters, _this_ is my family, as much as you are. I would die for them and they would die for me… and believe it or not, Tony understands that, as does Maddie and the other Agogites, as does most of the Horde."

Autumn scowls at him, "I'm still not happy with this."

"Like that's something new," he replies with a frown of his own.

"When this is over, and they are back, you and I are going to have a long talk about all of this," Autumn says with a glare before turning to the cabin again.

"I look forward to it," Tony mutters under his breath, wishing he had a clear cut enemy in front of him he could hit.

Tony walks down the street of Taipei, his mask off and face grim, his stride confident and even as he takes up a lane of the street to walk, none of the locals coming within twenty yards of him. His leather armor, jeans with weapons strapped to him are not the cause of their distance, but the two shapeshifters walking to either side of him. Had they been in their human forms, the two young women would have attracted looks of envy and perhaps lust, but instead they garner looks of fear and some of awe. Maddie is on his left in animal form, a huge black wolf with green dragon hide armor covering her from neck to hip, easily three and half feet at the shoulder and weighing a few hundred pounds, a pair of saddlebags draped over her hips with her gladius on it. Ming makes and even greater impression, as her animal form of a black and red furred tiger that stands just over four feet at the shoulder is both impressive in appearance but also a totem to be revered and worshiped by the local culture.

They had entered the city earlier that day, and as they had when first arriving in Taiwan, they went directly to the wild magic drenched center of the city and found a place to stay. Bagira had been left there with most of Maddie's and Ming's gear as Tony had decided this was a mission for Luang's friends and family, not outsiders. They had left that part of the city and walked to where they are now, the seedy part of town that caters to crime and illegal dealings. Tony's senses are on high alert, as are those of the shapeshifters with him as he finds what he's looking for after turning a corner in the neighborhood and a few blocks in, a large casino and restaurant establishment.

He walks past the two guards at the front door on security, both stepping back and their hands on the pommels of their undrawn swords as they back away. Another guard inside has run off, undoubtedly to notify the rest of security, but Tony is unconcerned, as that is exactly the response he wants. His slow walk into the lobby and them towards the dining area to the left down a wide and high hallway is interrupted halfway down the forty yard length by the reinforcements for security.

"I have no quarrel with you or your boss," Tony says loudly before they can speak. "I have a business proposition."

He pulls out a small pouch from his belt and tosses it the short distance to where the half dozen men in matching silk uniforms stand with short swords in their belts and short spears in hand. The leader who had been cut short from being able to give Tony an order catches the pouch reflexively, frowning in thought before opening it slightly to look inside. Seeing the half dozen gold coins within, he frowns as he decides what to do, then gives a curt set of orders to one of the men with him who runs off.

Tony, Maddie and Ming remain standing in the hall, the other patrons deciding to be elsewhere in the building and leaving them alone as the tension among the guards is high. Tony and the two shapeshifters stand relaxed, though internally they are prepared to leap into action if need be. After a few minutes another man walks down the hall from the high end restaurant, this one in an expensive dark suit and tie, accompanied by two similarly garbed men, his guards. The man is just shy of six feet tall with short black hair slicked back and with a thin black mustache on his upper lip, appearing to be in his mid-thirties.

"What business do you wish to conduct?" the man asks as he arrives next to the security personnel, his eyes on Tony alone, as though no one else in the hallway is present.

"It is likely a sensitive matter, if we could speak in somewhere a bit more private," Tony suggests, gesturing at the open hallway and the casino floor behind him through an open archway.

The man narrows his eyes then tosses his head to the side, turning and walking back the way he had come to the restaurant, the security personnel parting as Tony follows with shapeshifters in tow. The security does not follow them, though the two guards with the man openly eye Tony hand his own personal escorts with suspicion and caution. They enter the restaurant, the patrons glancing then pointedly ignoring the two enormous and unnatural animals following the owner of the establishment, as well as the colorfully scarred gwai lo with them. Tony had counted on this general reaction, the local culture respectful of animals and of tigers especially, and the rarity of a tiger shapeshifter, not to mention being able to have one as a servant would earn him immediate respect among any group here.

They enter a private dining room in the back which has a high table in it, the room, like the rest of the building, decorated in a western theme rather than in the native fashion. The man sits at the head of the table, where he has tea laid out for himself already, not offering a seat to Tony.

"Your purse has earned you ten minutes, I have other business to attend to," the man says, leaning back and raising the cup to his lips.

"I seek information about a Master of the Dead, specifically one who is already dead and has returned with the use of his mind," Tony says, blunt and directly.

The man tilts his head to the side as he re-evaluates Tony, "I am familiar with such a… creature. For what purpose do you wish this information?"

"Vengeance," Tony responds truthfully his tone hard and causing the guards to tense up in response as both Maddie and Ming growl at his sides.

The man places the cup down and leans back, his face a perfect blank as he digests this before speaking, "What you ask for is not free."

Tony pulls another purse from his belt, smaller than the first and tosses it onto the table in front of the man, the strings loose and spilling a colorful spray of jewels across the table. The man studies the dozen that have poured forth, calculating their worth and estimating what remains in the bag and then returning his gaze to Tony.

"A necromancer by the name Zou Pei was cast out by the government's Paranormal Division for conducting unauthorized experiments on corpses," the crime lord replies. "He disappeared from public sight and retreated to the edge of town. He conducted a spell there during a high point of magic last year, which killed him, yet allowed his spirit to remain in this world. He has tried to gain territory in the city, but he is unorganized and unskilled in this. Last reports I have are that he is trying to expand to the south."

"He tried and failed," Tony says with a small shake of his head. "I am here to end any further attempts."

The man nods understanding, "He is based just south of Xindian district, in an old abandoned warehouse complex. I will have my men show you where."

"Good," Tony says with a nod, glad to have an understanding.

"Do you plan to stay in Taipei for long?" the man asks, tilting his head as he tries to understand this outsider better.

"I am here only for this task, then we will be leaving," Tony replies, his tone hard and final. "If you would tell your men, we will go now."

"As you wish," the man says with a nod of his head, then a gesture to one of the guards who then escorts them from the room.

Tony pauses as the guard who had escorted them stops at the intersection and gestures to the fenced in warehouse and buildings beyond. They had loaned him a horse to ride, and the two guards are obviously skittish but follow their boss' orders in showing the gwai lo and his shapeshifters to the place as directed. Tony dismounts as he studies it in the night, activating his magic sight and nodding at the energy that rises off the buildings like mist melting under sunlight. He blinks as another light catches his eye and he frowns up at the overcast sky, a storm rolling in from the northeast.

"Did you tell Kris to bring Trixie and the Ptactors?" he asks in English, gesturing to the sky.

Maddie snarls angrily and Ming is silent, answering his question and he pulls a wooden chopstick from a bundle at his hip. He speaks a word of power and the trio of characters written at the base of the stick and then light bursts forth in a ray from the tip up to the clouds, a single piercing ray of golden light. He points it around the trio of auras he can see up there, recognizing Trixie's at this distance, and after a moment the three spots of light in his vision dive through the cloud cover and towards him. He dulls the light to a local golden glow and drops it to the ground by the road on an open patch of asphalt and grass in an abandoned parking lot then dismounting from his horse.

"Thank you for your assistance, but you will want to go far away from here for what comes next," Tony says to the men who had escorted them, who look at him in confusion at his actions a moment ago. "Oh, and when your employer suggests that he might seek out me or my friends when we survive this, be sure to tell him what you witnessed just now."

The pair of men look at him in confusion until a low shriek pierces the night and Trixie lands firmly in the empty lot, Kris on her back as the two Ptactors land at her sides with Tim on one of them. The horses spook and rear, Tony already at a distance and nonplussed as the two escorts try to keep their seats as their mounts run from the dragons that landed near them.

"Kris, we didn't call you, and the crossing was a huge risk," Tony says in a hard tone as he walks to Kris, who is dismounting from Trixie's back, hoisting his battle axe in one hand.

"We used the storm front for cover," he says with a frown of his own, gesturing to the flashing clouds approaching. "And if you think I'm sitting on the sidelines after some undead fucker killed Lu, then you're out of your damn mind."

"Ming, shift," Tony says, going to the saddlebags on Maddie's vest and pulling out a pair of jeans, t-shirt and vest with her spellcasting belt. "Maddie, stay in animal form until we fight, your sense of smell and hearing are better in this form."

Maddie ducks her head in acknowledgement as Ming shifts from tiger to human form in the course of a few seconds, rising from kneeling in the street to accept the clothing and gear. Tony is pointedly looking to the side, not as comfortable with nudity as the shapeshifters, but doing his best to play it off as professional.

"Kris, pull out the armor for you and me," he says to the older were-bear who doesn't blink at the order, but goes to the Ptactor that had no rider and pulls off a duffle bag.

A few minutes later there are two sets of armor laid out on the ground beside the Ptactors, one dark blue and grey for Kris, the other a ghostly grey and black for Tony with some silver highlights.

"I'm going to need some help getting this on," Tony says with a frown, not recognizing all the straps and clasps for it.

"I will help you," Ming says while Kris quickly and unhurriedly dons his own armor, both of the sets reminiscent of the Hordes of Genghis, as well as Chinese and Japanese design to allow full movement of the wearer.

It takes close to ten minutes, but eventually Tony is fully armored, and though heavier than his usual gear, he cannot deny that it is definitely more protective and that he does have the strength to move while wearing it. His endurance will not be what it was, but then he, like the Agogites, knows how to push past the complaints of his body as necessary. He tests the movement and distribution of the weight, tucking and rolling in the parking lot a few times while Ming and Kris secure the flying mounts to a sturdy tree at the edge of the lot. Maddie and Tim are watching their surroundings as the others prepare, and Tony strides up next to Maddie when he is as familiar with his armor as he will get in so short a time.

"This is it," Tony says quietly, running his hand through Maddie's course fur over her head and neck, the werewolf looking at the building intently.

He turns to where the others are joining him, and he speaks louder for all of them, "At the clearing he had giant spider constructs, not natural, something cobbled together and animated. It stands to reason he'll have things similar guarding his base. So we're looking at undead of various types, which means hit the nerve clusters at the spine and skull, the heart in Chinese and Japanese lore is far less reliable as a weakness. Tim, stay with our rides, we'll call if we need medical support or backup."

Tony turns away as he says the last and Tim snarls as his eyes flash blue and he takes a step angrily towards him, but Maddie has jumped between them with her hackles up and teeth bared.

"Dammit, Hessberg," Tim says angrily, looking over Maddie's form at where Tony has turned back towards him. "I'm not some second rate mage or a nobody with a blade. I've studied more magic and have more control than you do, and nearly as much as Ming. You shouldn't just leave me behind to guard the damn ride!"

Tony tilts his head, then speaks a single word that reverberates off the group and causes Tim to stumble and fall to his knees then down to all fours, his head bent as he obeys the word spoken in the ancient language of power, _bow_.

The others look at the forcibly placating form of Tim then at Tony with additional respect at the revelation, Maddie relaxing slightly as Tony steps past her to stand over Tim's prostrate form.

"We can't trust the locals," Tony says down to Tim's shaking form, trying to rise but unable. "We leave Trixie and the others here unattended and someone will try and take them, like they took them in Australia, remember? And if things go sideways inside, we can call for a grand entrance by you and them to bring a world of hurt or to evac us quickly."

Tony squats down next to Tim and uses one hand to raise the slightly older werewolf's head to allow him to see Tony's face.

"You and I have a reckoning coming, Timothy," Tony says with a hard expression of his own as he meets the were-wolf's eyes with a challenge, Tim returning the look. "But not now, not today. Today you're going to be a good dog and do as you're told, and we'll have that conversation later."

Tim tries to respond but can't, only a growling emerging from his gritted teeth.

"I look forward to it as well," Tony says in response as he rises, pulls his mask from his belt and pulls it over his head.

He turns and walks away from Tim with the others following him, the werewolf shuddering and finally able to stand as Tony releases him from the magical grip.

"I did not know you had a power word, Anthony," Ming says from beside him as they creep after Maddie who is leading them towards the warehouse, the rest spread out after her.

"I picked it up recently," he says, shrugging it off. "We've got bigger fish to fry right now. Maddie, take us to the front door."

Maddie doesn't respond but soon they are in front of the warehouse, its windows all dark and a chain around the doors out front. Maddie sniffs at them and jerks back with a low growl. Tony steps up and looks at the lock and chain, both silver composite, and he pulls his kurki from his side, bow in the other, chopping down firmly and breaking the chain. He pulls one door open and Maddie slowly slinks inside, Kris after her then Tony and Ming following them into the gloomy interior. Once the last of them enters Tony feels a surge of power then a snap in the air that causes the dust on the beams overhead to shudder and fall to the ground, the walls of the warehouse becoming reinforced with a ward.

"Aaahh, it looks like the meddlers have come to me," a voice says from somewhere in the darkness, out of Tony's sight and speaking in Chinese. "And here I thought you were simply a wandering band of heroes."

Tony draws and fires a previously mundane arrow to the ceiling, the projectile emitting a yellow glow to give better illumination and the shadows become sharper but it cuts down on the gloom significantly.

"So, Archer, what did they pay you to hunt me down?" the voice taunts as they group walks cautiously deeper into the warehouse's open area, offices and rooms to the right side of the building, the open area twenty yards across and over a hundred deep.

"Not a single coin, nor a promise or a favor," Tony replies firmly as he walks with DrageBien at the ready. "I'm going to kill you for free."

"Well, you are too late for that," the voice says with a dry chuckle. "I am already dead."

"We're going to make that a permanent condition, rather than your current transient one," Tony answers, his eyes scanning the dark and shifting to magical sight, his eyes glowing through the mask as he does and he pauses in mid-step, signaling the others to halt as well.

He bends his head and looks down, the floor glowing with the unnatural undead light as before, and he tilts his head to the side as he tries to determine what he is looking at. Before he can decide, the voice chants a pair of activating commands and what he is trying to interpret is revealed to them as the ground splits and a mismatched creature emerges from the ground, dirt falling from it. They group all spread out as long appendages flail out, Tony picking out the weirdly bent and mobile limbs as arms and legs of human corpses sewn together and animated. The muscles are stronger than they had been in death as the thing humps out of the crater it emerges from, its central body looking like that of an elephant with a rhino stitched and attached upside down across it's back, horses' hindquarters sticking from the sides numbering four on each side for numerous appendages total.

Tony and the others dive out of the way of the long tentacle like appendages that crack out like whips from the motion of the joints attached in rows with multiple hands and animal paws attached to the ends for grips. Patches of fur and hardened plates are haphazardly attached along the limbs' lengths, and Tony tries not to wince as one such appendage smashes into Kris as the were-bear chops down at it, throwing him into and through a support beam. Tony draws and fires a blue fletched arrow at the base of one of the appendages and the arrow sinks deep into the flesh and flash freezes it, but it continues to move, though slightly slower than before. He dives and rolls to the side as he shifts his bow into its compact form and turns while drawing his katana, using it to cut and deflect the next pair of appendages that slash at him. He slices clean through the limbs and the ends fly into the gloom, the golden glowing blade moving without resistance, and he moves closer to the center of the monster.

"Ming, keep that ward up and reinforced, I don't want the Lich to escape," he shouts out as he rolls under another pair of attacks and pivots, cutting down on the extended limb past him.

The were-tiger bounds back out of immediate range and starts pulling items from her spell pouch while running towards the nearest window to do as instructed.

"Maddie, give Ming cover! Kris, go for the base of the limbs!" he shouts out, sheathing his sword and drawing DrageBien once more and seating three yellow fletched arrows on the string, drawing and firing from a dozen yards away from the main body of the creature.

The arrows lance out and strike one side of the monster, causing the limbs on that side to spasm involuntarily and out of control, Tony dodging out of the way and pulling his sword out to lob them off. Kris has approached from the opposite side and with the monster's pacoderm head swinging towards Tony, the trunk missing and replaced with the rhino's two horns. Tony slices off another trio of limbs while moving closer, then diving and rolling closer and leaping up to his feet while pulling DrageBien from his side in his right hand, sword inverted in his left. He shifts it to spear form and shoves the blade at the end into the eye socket of the monster, who rears and stomps forward at Tony with both giant elephant feet.

Tony barely dives out of the way, and as he rises the giant head sweeps at him, the side of the front horn slapping him aside and sending a wave of pain up his side. He rolls with the impact that has sent him to the unshocked side of the monster, which directs its attacks at him while Kris attacks the base of the limbs.

"The spear!" Tony shouts while frantically dodging the dozen or so appendages, one closing six paws and two hands on his left thigh, lifting him in the air while he cuts down and severs it from the body.

He falls awkwardly to the ground and rolls to the side, barely avoiding another gripping end and shoves himself to his feet, ungainly as the other appendage has not released his leg. He blocks and slices the attacking appendages as Kris lunges forward on the monster's back, legs braced to the sides against the forelegs of the upended rhino corpse. He grips the spear a foot from where it enters the eye in one hand, the other gripping the smaller of the two horns in front and then jerking the weapon back, deep into the brain case of the monster. The creature shudders, shrieks and spasms before falling to the side and settling in final, real death.

Tony grunts as he pulls the claws from his leg and shoves the appendage aside, "Ming, status on the ward?"

"I'll have it locked in a moment," she says, then chants and tosses a small scroll of lettering at the shimmering emerald green ward over the window, causing it to pulse and shift into an aquamarine glow.

"Kris, check to see if there are any tunnels leading down from where it came up," Tony says, sheathing his sword with a grimace, then placing his left hand over the wound and giving a short chant while shoving magic at the damaged flesh, stopping the bleeding and putting a rough patch of skin over the wound, the shallow cuts not damaging the muscle beneath due to the armor he wears.

"Maddie, go back up Kris, there's no other auras here, this guy's got to be below us somewhere," he continues after looking around in the magical spectrum for a pair of moments.

Maddie trots to him, bumping his face with her wet nose affectionately then continuing to where Kris is cautiously entering the depression where the monster had emerged, his double bladed Maratha battle axe at the ready. Tony breathes deep as he walks to the skull of the undead monster, pausing where DrageBien is sticking from one eye socket, and he places a hand on it. He connects to the magic of the weapon, and in a moment the spear shifts to the compact form, which Tony places in the small of his back. He walks to the body and starts to pull his arrows from it and replacing them in his quiver as he does, waiting for a report from where he can sense Kris and Maddie slowly probing the depression.

"Looks like an underground network, old utility lines and such," Kris calls loudly from the bottom of the depression.

"Ming, pull your magic from the ward," Tony calls, and she starts to work to pull it down. "He's got another access point, meaning another escape route. Get ready to pursue. Maddie, can you identify his scent in a different body?"

He asks the last while pulling a bundle from the wooden case attached to his quiver, unwrapping the oiled cloth from it. She growls loudly in the affirmative in response, and he nods in unseen reply, having counted on it. From the hard wooden case he pulls out a steel mirror and speaks a word that activates the connection, Tim's angry face appearing on the surface.

"Go airborne with Trixie and the Ptactors, give me a magical sight picture of the compound, we're going underground after him, but he'll have multiple holes to rabbit from," he says to Tim, who nods curtly. "Do not engage, report if he runs, and we'll follow."

"I know the drill," Tim answers angrily, cutting the connection, and Tony hopes that the older man will do as he's told.

Tony replaces the mirror in its case and places it back in the slot on the quiver before walking to where Maddie and Kris are waiting at the base of the small crater, Ming arriving as well.

"Maddie up front, then Ming, me and Kris bring up the rear," Tony says, giving the order of movement. "Keep it tight and don't take any chances, we're on his home turf, so if we need to turn up the heat, we turn it up. Got it?"

They all nod grimly, then Maddie drops down into the hole below and leads them into the dark tunnels beneath the warehouse and surrounding industrial complex.

Tim mutters angrily under his breath as he rides the wyvern, Trixie, high above the warehouse complex below, doing a figure eight that allows him to peer over the mount's side and see the ground below. That damn boy had embarrassed him in front of the other Horde members, particularly Maddie, and all Agogites, which he has been trying to prepare for the next class. He really didn't even want to come on this damn mission, hating Tony for stealing the Khan's daughter from him and seeing this as an opportunity to be the shoulder for Maddie to lean on after he died abroad. Instead his mother volunteered him to be part of this mission as representative of the Wolf Clan, as Maddie is on the trip as Tony's mate. That really pisses him off, that the gods would be so fickle as to let her form a mating bond with a human, and someone who could never be a shapeshifter, either, to top it off.

He's drawn from his angry thoughts as his magical sight notices a dark trio of auras emerge in the thin screen of trees just outside the complex. He murmurs a command and a charm his mother gave him on his wrist activates and enhances his already keen vision, allowing him to discern the figures below in detail. It is an Asian man in black robes glancing over his shoulder and casting a look skyward briefly, accompanied by two humanoid creatures, undead flesh golems judging by the color of the magic they radiate and the stitched together appearance. Three, and he has the element of surprise with two Ptactors on his flanks, the decision is easy to make as he pushes Trixie into a dive and they drop from the sky like a falcon.

Trixie quickly locks onto the target Tim aims her at, and she spreads her wings while lashing down with her claws to grip the man in her talons. A red spherical ward flares around the man and his creatures, protecting them from attack and the necromancer turns his pale features and faded eyes from where he had been looking ahead of him to Tim on Trixie's back. Tim raises his arm with his charms on it, pushing magic into it and throwing a protective shield in front of him just as a lance of power strikes it, knocking him from his seat and to the ground. Trixie, startled by the burst as she was not protected and her neck singed by the attack, flaps towards the sky from the danger, not connected to the one who had been riding her.

Tim rises quickly to his feet and pulls another charm, this one from his belt, throwing it towards the Lich and its minions, shouting a command word as he does. The small charm explodes on impact with the ward that flashes once again into existence around them, and he curses angrily as he leaps to the side, avoiding another lance of power as it destroys a tree he had been in front of. He is pulling the steel mirror awkwardly from his belt and shoving magic in it to activate it while pulling another charm from his wrist bracelet and throwing up another shield as another lance hits it, causing him to stagger. The steel mirror falls to the side and he is immersed in defending himself as he avoids smaller and faster darts of magic from the Lich.

"Hold," Tony says loudly, his voice carrying over the din of combat as they were ambushed by reanimated corpses and they are in the process of decapitating them while defending themselves.

The shapeshifters with him shove enemies away and bound back, giving them a few moments of relative quiet as the crowd of forty or so undead scramble back to their feet to advance again. Tony's focus is on the sound coming from his quiver, the mirror in its case receiving a signal and he can faintly hear what is coming from the other side. He recognizes some explosions, and Tim shouting a command word.

"Back topside, now!" Tony shouts, figuring going back the way they came that they know is clear will be faster than pushing forward.

Kris hacks at the approaching crowd while Ming throws down a temporary ward that will buy them a few seconds as they turn and run back the way they came. In a minute or so they are at the hole, the others waiting for Tony, the slowest of the group, Kris cupping his hands into a saddle and he stepping and leaping up into the warehouse again. Ming is already at the main door with Maddie at her side, and Tony can see the flashes in the nearby woods where Tim must be fighting the Lich. Ming shoves a small, hastily written scroll at the ward that shudders and falls, she swaying in response to dropping the ward.

"Kris, watch her until she's ready to move, then come support us," Tony says firmly, reaching over to Maddie and grabbing hold of her harness. "Let's go."

Though slightly awkward, Maddie is able to partially carry Tony at a pace far faster than if he had tried to run on his own pace, skipping and being carried for yards at a time as they rush into the thin forested area. In a minute they arrive at where Tim is at, two large, mismatched and sewn together undead with four arms each swinging at him while he jabs them with his rapier. He is twenty yards away, and on the other side of them is the Lich with a chest beside him, probably carried by one of the undead before he ran into Tim. Tony releases his hold from Maddie's vest, running then jumping up off of a log while pulling an arrow and firing at the Lich, Maddie going for the creature Tim is not directly fighting while shifting into warrior form.

The black fletched arrow lashes out and strikes the ward around the undead, the translucent protection flashing and shattering like glass in the night, fading from sight as it scatters. The Lich snarls and swings an arm at Tony as he lands and rolls, the wand in his hand flashing and sending a dark purple flash of energy at him. Tony's senses are dialed down, though, and he sways to the side while timing the draw of another arrow, the bolt missing him by inches but heating up his armor as it passes. He seats and fires another arrow, this fletched in red and when it strikes the Lich it bursts into flames, screeching in anger as the flames rise in the night.

The Lich throws its wand forward and the purple mist of its existence follows it and passes to inhabit one of the undead constructs before the wand arrives. The creature turns to catch the wand but Tony has drawn a mundane arrow and fired at the tumbling stick in the night, knocking it off target and into the underbrush. The monster snarls at Tony and turns to Tim, who has buried his rapier in its back to the hilt, the point protruding from over where its heart used to reside. The creature reaches back in an unnatural fashion and grips Tim's arm before he can withdraw the blade, swinging the were-wolf around and slamming him into the ground at his feet. The four arms hammer downward like sledgehammers and crush the young man's ribcage before he can react and try to shift forms, continuing to pound until Tony's next arrow, fletched in blue, strikes and immobilizing it by freezing it solid.

Tony turns and fires again, this time back at where the Lich's first body is being consumed by fire, and aiming at the stationary box beside it. The red fletched arrow causes the wooden and steel box to burst into flames and the Lich in his borrowed monstrous body unleashes an unholy shriek into the night, even when frozen in place. Tony has another arrow out and in flight already, and the blue fletched arrow strikes the monster Maddie is trading blows with, freezing the body solid. Maddie lunges forward immediately, latching her powerful jaws on its skull and crunching it like a nut, the grey brain matter leaking out. She with an angry expression as she turns to where the remaining monster is crouched like a statue over Tim's form, and she dashes forward, shoving the frozen monster away and to the side.

Tony collapses DrageBien and places it on his belt, pulling his katana from its sheath as he closes to the burning chest, the wood falling away from it, revealing a glass and ceramic container with an intricate weave of silver encasing it, the Lich's phylactery. Tony stops next to the fire and looks at the frozen form lying a dozen paces away, the eyes of the creature on Tony.

"You killed my friend, our family," Tony says in a hard tone better suited to someone a decade or more his elder. "And now, you end."

He raises the sword and cuts down with two hands, pushing magic into the blade which glows with a golden light to rival the sun as it descends and cuts cleanly through the phylactery. A small explosion of magic and the night dims again, revealing the thawing figure that is now truly dead, as well as Tony, Maddie and Tim. Tony sheathes his sword absently and hurries to where Tim is lying in a pool of his own blood on the forest floor, leaking from where bones emerge from his chest and hips.

"Can you heal him?" she says, the words rough but understandable as she speaks slowly.

Tony frowns and looks at the damage, shaking his head, "It's too much, I don't have the healing spells for it. But…"

He frowns hard, recalling some of his lessons on the mountain, then makes a decision, for good or for ill.

"We're not losing anyone else on this island," he says firmly, pulling his kurki from his hip and drawing across his left palm. "Push his bones back into place."

He chants words he does not understand, his voice ringing with power as he pushes magic into his words, his blood steaming with multicolored mist as it dribbles onto the open wounds of the were-wolf. Maddie roughly shoves bones into alignment, pulling and pushing to get the bones under the skin and into generally correct position, Tim gasps feebly but is unable to resist. Tony finishes his chant a pair of breaths after Maddie has finished pushing things into order and his scars brighten so strongly that it shines through the mask and the thinner layers of his armor. He speaks another word of power, one Maddie doesn't know and Tim's form arcs as power strikes him in the night, flashing brightly like a bolt of lightning.

When Tony blinks his vision back from the spots marking it, Tim is lying limp on the dirt ground, soaked with sweat but alive, and he falls to his knees beside him. He almost pitches onto his face but Maddie has a large clawed hand on his shoulder, steadying him, and he absently nods thanks as she holds him up. After a few long moments of just catching his breath Tim shudders and gasps in front of him, rolling away to his side and giving Tony a confused then angry look.

"I told you to call it up, not to engage," Tony says, fighting to keep his anger in check as he pulls his mask from his face, smearing blood from his bleeding nose across his face and hair, the scars on his face faded in color from using magic.

"I had an opportunity, I made a call," Tim replies angrily in turn, pushing away a few feet and slowly rising to his feet.

"Shitty call, Domasca," Tony tells him with a frown as he starts to stand as well.

Tim starts to reply but Maddie snarls low and his retort dies in his throat, instead shooting the teenager an angry glare then turning away and retrieving his sword.

Tony walks around and retrieves his arrows, replacing them in his quiver, then pulls a whistle from his belt as they walk back towards the warehouse, blowing three notes inaudible to normal humans but clear to shapeshifters and others with enhanced hearing. The notes hang in the air as they jog out of the trees and as they reach the open area Trixie and the two Ptactors land in front of them, having responded to the call and followed them out. Kris and Ming walk up, Ming looking wan but moving in the night air.

"It is done," Tony says as he stops in front of Ming, bowing deeply to her, extending out the wrapped crystal blade they had taken from the first encounter with the Lich.

Ming nods, takes the bundle from him and places it under her arm with a stoic expression.

"Kris, you, Ming and Tim stay with Trixie and the Ptactors here, I'll go back into town with Maddie to go pick up Bagira and our stuff from where we got a room," Tony says to the older man. "I'll call via mirror for rooftop pickup there. You already risked the channel once, I think we can do it again if we stay high like you did, this time to find somewhere to bed down in the forests of China. This place isn't exactly welcoming."

Kris nods understanding as Tony and Maddie start to jog back into the city, dawn starting to lighten the eastern horizon beyond the grey and dark clouds of the storm.

Tony walks into the cheap hotel room, Bagira sitting cross legged on the bed and waiting as Maddie follows him in, still in warrior form. The panther-were calmly rises and moves to the side as Maddie walks to the bed and shifts to human form, lying down on it with a sigh of relief.

"How long do you want?" Tony asks as she pulls the thin sheet of the bed's covers over her bare legs and rolls to her back.

"I'll be good in an hour," she says muzzily then goes immediately to sleep, as evidenced by the light snore she adopts from her slightly open mouth and one arm slowly levering to the side to be splayed out.

"Ms. O'Connell called your mirror while you were out, twice," Bagira says with a blank expression. "She was insistent that you call her back as soon as possible."

"Got it," he says with a nod, gesturing to the door with his mask off. "Go grab us something to eat for when she wakes up before we leave, the same place we went when we got here, order the same thing as before and pay the same amount. The others are waiting for us out of town where we fought to signal pickup."

"Did the mission succeed?" she asks, eyebrow quirked as she accepts a pouch of coins from him, not as used to using currency and still wary in the busy areas compared to the tiny village she grew up in.

"Vengeance was served," he says with a hard nod, to which Bagira nods appreciatively, then leaves the room, locking it behind her.

Tony sits at the small desk where the mirror is sitting, a circular reflective glass one Maddie had been traveling with to connect back to the States. He places his bare left hand over the glass and a multicolored haze drifts down to it and with a short chant the mirror activates, connecting to the mirror in Houston. He sees the living room of his father's cabin in the Bastion, and he wonders who is there waiting in case a call comes in. Unsurprisingly, Aunt A hurries into view and she has a frown on her face as she enters the view of the mirror, white t-shirt and a thin grey linen shawl over her shoulders.

"Where have you been? I've called twice," she says as she pushes a lock of hair that had escaped her braid out of her eyes.

"So Bagira told me," Tony says with a curious frown of his own. "What's up?"

"Please tell me you haven't confronted that creature you encountered the other night," she says with a frown and a warning look at him.

"Okay, I won't tell you," Tony says with frown and a slight shrug. "How's Ms. Nash doing? Is she talking yet?"

"Don't change the subject," Autumn says with scowl at him. "You shouldn't be out chasing bad guys, Tony, you're in enough danger as it is trying to get home."

Tony blinks at her for a moment but instead of feeling ashamed or chastised, he feels angry, and he frowns back at her with anger in his voice.

"Luang is dead, Aunt A. D-E-D, dead, and _not_ coming back," he says, his voice hard and causing her to blink in surprise at his response. "You don't need to remind me or anyone here that this is a dangerous situation. Stop being a fucking mother hen and understand that I've already crossed out of the Indian jungle, crossed the Himalayas while hunted by Ghurkas and then crossed the entire continent of China, pretty much without help."

"I'm not discounting your accomplishments, Tony, I just don't think you should be taking more risks than necessary," she says, frowning and shaking her head.

He clenches his jaw and takes a deep breath before answering, not wanting to act in anger, "Y'know, you keep reminding us we need to act like adults. Well, this is me adulting. Tell dad that I'll call in with a status report and after action report once I'm linked in with the rest of my team and on the mainland."

He pulls magic from the mirror and the connection snaps closed before Autumn can respond.

"Why that little…" Autumn trails off with a surprised expression on her face, mouth slightly open then reaching out to try and re-establish a connection, but it is blocked.

She turns and glares at the kitchen and storms back in, where Richard is sitting and picking at sliced pieces of grilled sausages.

"He takes after you," she says with anger as she sits down in the chair she had left to take the connection.

"You're mad because he's right," Richard says calmly as he chews. "And because I'm right."

"You're also wrong," she argues, picking up a piece of her own kielbasa and cutting it with a scowl. "Vengeance is wrong, and nothing you say can convince me otherwise."

"Suit yourself," Richard says with a bland shrug. "But if someone else isn't going to right the wrong, and the person involved in it has to mete out justice or punishment, that doesn't make it wrong."

"It's the emotion of it, Rich," she says back, trying not to snap, pausing with an angry exhalation of breath as she glares at him. "Especially at their age, if emotion gets the better of them now, it will have control of them later."

"Like it did with us?" he asks, both eyebrows raised questioningly with the same bland expression.

"I… _swear_ to the goddess that you go out of your way to drive me to the edge of reason," Autumn says slowly with her eyes closed and fists clenched angrily around the utensils in her hands.

"Well, I'm putting something on the table for you to think about," he replies evenly as he rises and puts his empty plate in the sink. "If you want to leave, say the word and I'll set you up anywhere on the continent you want, within reason, with a bankroll to get you set up and started for a while."

Autumn blinks at him with a dumbfounded expression, "What?"

"I'm giving you an out, if you want it," he clarifies. "You never bargained for this, or signed up for it, like I did. You just wanted to be a simple shop keeper selling books and tea and some other odds and ends. Think it over, and if you want out, just say so."

"But…" she starts to say, shaking her head in befuddlement.

"Think it over," he says with a shrug, his beer in hand. "It's not something to decide lightly, but I figured you deserved to be reminded you don't have to do this, you don't have to be here."

She is still blinking as she tries to absorb his offer as he walks out of the kitchen and down into the lower levels of the Bastion.

Tim glares at the fire in the center of camp, having set it up and gotten it started while the others in the group perform other activities for setting up camp. He looks around and internally nods as he sees that Tony goes a distance from the camp with the communications mirror to call back to Texas and give a report, Maddie going with him. Ming is moving in a circle around the camp, preparing a ward to lock into place once the call is done that will hide them from magical and mundane sight as well as protect them. He edges over to where Kris is scanning the mid-day forest around them, the group having landed in a small clearing and then moving into the trees to set up camp.

"Kris, I think we have a problem," Tim says in a low voice in an attempt to keep the conversation between them, though Ming may be able to overhear them.

"What?" the older man says, glancing at him, then returning to scanning their surroundings and providing an alert eye on security while the rest of the group works on other tasks.

"Tony isn't trained to be in charge of a group," Tim says reasonably. "And Maddie does, but they're both young and with what happened to Luang, I don't think any of the others are thinking straight."

Kris stops scanning and looks sideways at Tim with narrowed eyes, "What are you getting at?"

"I think it would be better for all of us if you were in charge for the rest of the trip," Tim suggests, knowing he'd never be able to be allowed to be in charge of this group, but that Kris, being over a decade older than the others and with Army experience is a logical choice. "We could avoid these side missions, like the one that got Luang killed, that aren't part of the mission, which is to get home."

Kris looks down at where Tim has sat on the ground next to him, taller than the werewolf by a few inches, his gaze calculating then he twists his head and shakes it.

"Domasca, if I hear you speak again without being given an order to do so, I'm going to break your jaw," Kris says with a flat expression and his eyes never leaving Tim's.

"I-" Tim starts to say, surprised at the response but Kris' hand snaps out like a snake and grips his jaw in his big, calloused hand, unable to continue what he was going to say.

"Luang put him in charge," Kris says firmly, his expression darkening and anger underlying his words. "If he trusted him to lead us, then that's good enough for me, and for the others. _Not_ that this is a democracy… this is a dictatorship."

Tim fights not to whine in pain as the werebear's grip tightens and one of his molars is pushed slowly out of alignment in his jaw, blood starting to leak out between his lips.

"Luang was in charge, this was _his_ mission, and he put Tony in charge before he died, period fucking dot," Kris says, his tone gaining more anger and Tim now gripping the arm grasping him desperately as the pressure and pain builds. "Your momma and daddy ain't here to protect you, and you are a member of the Horde, so we won't leave you here to die, but if you so much as look at him in a disrespectful way again, I will pull the offending eyes out of their sockets and make you eat them."

The last words are growled low and menacingly, Tim's eyes widening in realization that the Agogite is entirely serious in his threat.

"Blink twice if you believe me," Kris says in that same dark tone, the irises of his eyes shifting to bright blue with his inner beast.

Tim blinks quickly two times and Kris shoves the smaller man away with a grunt of disgust, "Go make dinner, and don't fuck it up."

Tim goes back to the campfire to heat water for the stew they'll eat on the road, rubbing his jaw and glaring over his shoulder as he goes.

Richard frowns where he is sitting with Tasha and Jocelyn, talking over things going on in the Horde, as Jocelyn has worked the most with Tasha and understands her expressions best since she woke up, and he needing to explain the issues facing them.

"So that's the deal," he finishes, shaking his head. "We've got a few more days, then your protection expires. Do you understand?"

"Yes, understand," she says with a firm nod and her speech slow but clear. "They will not take you from me."

"I know, but we need you to remember more on how to fight," he continues. "Your mind has been gone for a long time but your body has not, so we need to train and remind your head what your body already knows about fighting."

"Oh kay," she says with a nod, then turns her head as she hears the mirror in the other room snap open to the connection across the globe to the one with Tony and Maddie.

Richard rises from the table and Tasha and Jocelyn join him in the living room where Tony and Maddie's faces are large on the mirror, expanded as the other mirror is much smaller. He sits in the couch in front of the mirror, Tasha beside him and Jocelyn perching on the arm with her feet dangling and kicking. Tony has his mask off and Richard notes that the colors seem less bright than usual, and he wonders what caused that, but knows better than to push. Maddie has dark purple hair, having dyed it back on the ship, and though he can see pros and cons to that, he lets it go, only noting that she has shaved the left side of her head to only stubble with the rest pulled back in a ponytail at the moment.

"How is the trip?" Richard asks, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"I know Ming called earlier, and gave a quick report and told everyone about Luang," he says, both teenagers somber on the other end of the call. "He died protecting her from a Lich, and he fought bravely."

"He died as he lived, with honor," Maddie adds from beside him, her own tone better suited to someone decades older.

"The Xiangs will be pleased to hear that," Richard says with a nod. "And the Lich?"

"We tracked him to Taipei, and stormed his compound, an abandoned warehouse complex," Tony says with a bland expression, though Richard can sense other emotions beneath them, and he wishes he could use his nose to help him parse them out.

"He had undead constructions and reanimated corpses guarding his lair," Maddie continues in a matter of fact tone. "We didn't get a detailed count, but we have written reports to turn in when we get home for the records."

"Tim had been left in reserve and attacked the Lich and a pair of constructs when they tried to rabbit," Tony continues, and the anger in his eyes is unmistakable to Richard as the young man speaks. "Maddie and I got there in time to destroy the constructs and I killed the Lich by destroying its phylactery. Tim almost died in the fight, I had to use a lot of magic to keep him from dying…"

He trails off with a frown, glancing at the side, then at Maddie, who nods at him and Richard can see where she has her hand on his arm, giving him a squeeze to continue.

"I poured some of my blood into him and used a power word I learned on the mountain," Tony says with an unhappy sigh. "It was the only way to keep him from dying, he'd been pretty much shattered to pieces by one of the constructs when the Lich took possession of it."

"What did the power word mean?" Richard asks, although already suspecting.

"It meant 'mine' in the old language of power," Tony says as he looks down then back up at him. "I brought him back but now he is bound to me. And I'm not really sure what that means yet."

"Trial and error will probably reveal that quickly, but that's a dangerous path," Richard says with a nod of understanding. "It'll probably be best if you have Kris or Maddie give him orders until you get home and we can see if we can do anything."

"We were thinking the same thing, have Kris be in charge of him, Tony and I don't exactly have an impartial perspective when it comes to him," Maddie says with a scowl of her own.

"Agreed," Richard says with a nod. "The Xiangs will be glad to know about Luang. I presume you burned the body, and will be bringing the ashes home."

"We did, in a ceremony at a Buddhist Temple on the Eastern side of the island," Tony says with a nod.

"Where are you now?" Richard asks.

"We made it back across the channel and are camped out in the wilds about six hundred miles further north, about a hundred miles west of Shanghai, the mounts need some rest before we continue on," Tony says, looking away from the mirror and looking at the forest around them. "We're not going to make Japan in time to catch that Navy ship, and booking another ride would be risky. Right now we're looking at continuing north and going across the Bering Straight, then down the coast from Alaska and then home."

"How long do you think until you're home?" Jocelyn asks from the side, leaning forward and looking intently at her bigger sister. "I miss you guys."

"We miss you, too, short stuff," Tony says with a smile at the young girl. "If we don't get sidetracked, we can make well over five hundred miles a day or more depending on the winds and weather. It'll still be a couple weeks, I think, China was big, but we'll have to travel up the rest of Asia then down the Western side of North America, half the Pacific Rim."

"And what about getting sidetracked?" Richard asks carefully, trying for bland with an unconcerned face.

Tony's expression hardens, as does Maddie's, as he replies, "If it happens, it happens. We won't turn a blind eye to evil, it's not who we are."

Richard slowly smiles at them, pride surging in him as he looks across the thousands of miles at them, "No, it's not."

Richard looks to his side where Tasha is looking at Tony and Maddie through the looking glass, "Tasha, do you have anything to add?"

"I miss you both," she says slowly. "I hope to see you soon."

"I miss you, too, Tasha," Maddie beams, Tony smiling as well now.

"I hope to see you soon, too, Ms. Nash," Tony says, nodding.

"I won't joggle your elbow," Richard says, turning back to the mirror as he takes Tasha's hand in his own. "Do your best, and Godspeed. I love you both and I have faith in you."

"Love you, too, Dad," Tony says with a tight smile and a nod.

"Love you, Rick," Maddie says, blowing a kiss at the mirror then they cut the connection to the mirror and it is once again a simple reflective surface.

Autumn walks carefully up the beams to the platform on the barn, where Richard is sparring with Tasha, slowly going through the motions of paired fighting sticks as she relearns the basics. She pauses at the top, trying to ignore how high up she is as Tasha's eyes snap onto her and Richard raps her on the forearm as her attention wavers. Tasha snarls as she drops the stick in that hand and jumps back from the hit.

"That's tunnel vision, remember?" he says, pointing a stick at Tasha, circling around as the other does the same, her eyes back on him. "The predator in you wants to focus on one item at a time, to look at that single prey to rend and tear, but it blocks out everything else. When you shift focus like that, it leaves you open."

Tasha growls low but nods and says slowly and carefully, "I understand."

"Good," Richard says with a smile now, walking to her with his sticks lowered in one hand. "I love you, and I don't want you to get hurt, we're running out of time."

"I know," she says with a nod of her own, hugging him as he wraps his arms around her and nuzzling her nose into his neck. "Mate…"

"Go clean up, I'll be down for dinner shortly," he says, kissing her on the head.

She turns and kisses him firmly on the lips then turns and drops off the platform to land easily on bent knees below then strides to the cabin.

"I envy that you guys can do superhero landings and not hurt your knees permanently like the rest of us," Autumn says as she backs cautiously away from the edge of the platform and relaxing.

"What's up?" Richard asks, stopping a few feet from her with a calm expression as he wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his arm, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and athletic shorts.

"Your offer the other day," she says with a pensive frown. "You surprised me, I didn't think you'd want me to leave."

Richard sighs with a frown, "It's not about what I want or don't want, sis. What I want is the people I care about to be safe, but something you don't always realize is that the Army gave me something I didn't have when we were younger. Pragmatism."

"What do you mean?" she asks, frowning in return, adjusting the long, thin shawl around her shoulders.

"I'm directly responsible for the entire Horde, like a father to his children and family," he explains, waving at the Bastion that has shapeshifters milling about it, training and some living in it. "And now, beyond that, to the Corporation that I am the President of, all the hundreds of companies I own and manage, the families and people connected to those businesses, the economy of the area and beyond. And with the Claiming, I'm also responsible now for the security and safety of the area from internal and external threats. I can't afford to make choices on how I feel, I have to make cold, hard calculations and pick the best of bad choices, because that's my job, and I can't delegate that."

"I think you're overthinking your worth. And besides, what do I have to do with any of that?" she says, shaking her head, shifting her staff to her other hand.

"Pragmatically speaking," he says with a frown, turning to look out at the Bastion, lowering himself to sit cross legged on the platform, Autumn lowering herself to sit beside him less gracefully.

"The Rabbis are pissed, and that's putting it mildly," he explains. "They want you, and I won't give you up, you are a friend of the Horde and my sister, they'll take you over our dead bodies. It's going to cost me a lot to keep the peace with them, and it's going to cause a rift in both the politics of the region and the economy, we all know how well they do business, historically speaking.

"The entire area got me shoved down their throat as the de facto 'king' of the land when I Claimed over Roland," he continues, not really looking at her as she listens and processes it all while he speaks. "No one wanted a king, and I don't want to be king, but when faced with the monster at the door and the monster they already live with and have an understanding with, the choice was simple, even if no one liked it and no one actually got to choose but me."

"We talked about that," Autumn reminds him with an unhappy expression of her own. "And you're right, most of them didn't have a choice, only the Norse and the Horde, in a way. But we both know what the Mid-west is like under Roland, the US Government has lost control of the region and has barely held control of the South."

"You don't have to stay," he says simply. "You're not married to anyone here, I'll buy your property at cost and give you money to go if you want to. I chose this life, you got dragged in, and that's my fault."

She frowns at him and sighs, shaking her head, "That's not fair. You invited me and I chose to come. Do you piss me off on a regular basis? Yes, you're family, that's what family does, and besides, you're my brother, I love you. But you already said it, you and a lot of people here would die before you'd let someone hurt me or kill me. Those same people are folks I would, and have, risked my own life for, and will again when needed. When you gave me friend of the Horde status, I took it _very_ seriously."

She says the last with emphasis, eyebrows raised and shaking her head in amazement, "I have the Horde Codebook, which though annoyingly thick, is actually well referenced and organized. I read everything that applies to someone with that status, and I know what that means to members of the Horde, and what that means for me."

"It was not that organized when I got here," he admits with a sigh. "I re-wrote it after I took power, I'd already written and codified the security protocols, so expanding it to the rest of the Horde made sense. My predecessor, monster that he was, actually started the current Codebook, I made my adjustments and finalized it once I took the mantle."

"You've never talked about that, your predecessor," she says with a frown at him, tilting her head in curiosity. "I heard someone say he was a Chimera-were, and the Black Vohls stole his body to try and raise Chernobog. Lots of awed tones when those who were there talked about how you handled it."

"I did my part," Richard says with a frown and off handed shrug.

"Dropping a family ward cast by two dozen Black Vohls, whom I've met the survivors of so I know how powerful they were, by yourself using only your blood and no spell, 'doing your part'…" she says with a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head. "Oh, that reminds me…"

She picks up her staff, raps him on the head, and he jerks back and stares at her with a hard frown of his own as he holds his head.

"Oooow."

"That's for doing something suicidal," she says with a nod, putting her staff back down.

"You weren't even here," he says incredulously.

"Doesn't matter, I'm still allowed," she says airily. "Sibling prerogative."

"Well, shit, maybe I should just let you beat me for an hour to get it all out of the way," he grouses, shaking his head.

"No, I like to keep them a surprise," she says with another shake of her head. "And as for your 'pragmatism', as useful as it is, you aren't getting rid of me that easily. Your kids drive me as insane as you do, but they need a voice of reason to counter your hair brained schemes and Machiavellian issues."

Richard snorts and smiles, "You called me Machiavellian."

"I called your issues Machiavellian," she corrects him. "He wouldn't have done some of the idiot things you have."

"We'll agree to disagree," he says with a smirk, leaning forward to watch the sunset with his sister.

"What did you mean when you told Tasha you're running out of time?" she asks as the colors start to darken and fade.

"Tasha's recovering from her injury, so she can't be challenged by anyone in the Horde for the position of Female Alpha until her recover time is complete," he explains with a frown and a sigh. "She has a few more days and then anyone who wants her position can challenger her for it."

"But she's your wife," Autumn says with a shake of her head.

"It doesn't have to be my wife that has that position," he explains. "And I don't have to mate with who wins, we'll just work together to manage and run the Horde. It just works a lot better when they are mated and a couple."

"Would someone really challenge her?" Autumn says with a frown as she thinks it over. "I mean, you're the Khan, and they even gave her a title, Nimir-ra."

"Believe it or not, I am not beloved and adored by everyone in the Horde," he says with a smirk and shake of his head. "There are plenty of people that would prefer we stop working with the other groups and factions in the city so much, that we need to be more isolationist and keep to ourselves, like before I took over. Not to mention the animal-were tolerances that have been front and center that Tasha and Mischa have been instrumental in instituting and making successful. With Tasha and her near memory wipe and Mischa unable to be challenged until thirty days after she gives birth…"

He shrugs at the last, frowning as he watches the darkening sky.

" 'Heavy is the head that wears the crown'," Autumn says with a sigh of her own, shaking her head. "And Tony's still out there, with Maddie and the others, then the Appalachian Council reared its head as well."

"Yeah, so right now I'm hoping that stress doesn't lead to balding in our family," Richard says, rubbing the dark stubble on the top of his head.

Autumn smirks sardonically, "Dad was an alcoholic, a right bastard in every sense of the word and stressed as hell and still had a full head of hair, I think you're safe."

"About the Council," Richard says, turning his head towards her.

"I have a blood sample from the trio that visited the Norse," Autumn says. "I can do divinations, but I haven't decided what and where, yet. Every time I start to work out a plan I hit a roadblock because it would need help from the Rabbis, and I'm no longer on their Happy Hanukah mailing list."

"I have a suggestion, and though you'll hate it, hear me out and think it over," Richard says and she frowns but nods after a moment's consideration.

"Don't approach this like you usually do," he says tossing his head to the side. "They know you, the old you, from when you were in New York, and in general you still do things that way, which is why they've been able to predict your moves. You need to do the same thing you've been saying to my kids."

She looks at him with a puzzled frown, "I don't understand."

"You see yourself as a simple Celtic Witch with a few tricks and above average skills," he says, to which she nods agreement. "That's total bullshit, and you don't want to admit it. You're pretending to be a fifth level Cleric when you're actually a level sixteen multiclassed level three Sorcerer and thirteen Cleric."

Autumn makes a sour expression and shakes her head as she tries to protest and he cuts her off with a sharp gesture.

"You carry a staff that was forged by an Ancient Wizard from the last Age of Magic who is around five to seven thousand years old, for the love of God," he says, waving at the Staff of Babylon. "You're the fucking Mother of Dragons, and even if the Tablets have crumbled since we broke the metaphysical ties by Claiming this area, you're my go-to expert on magic shit. Stop waffling about this and own it, sis. You're a badass."

She looks at him balefully, "Great pep talk, brother mine."

"Stop looking at yourself wrong," he says with a frown and shake of his own head. "You know I'm right. You self-assess yourself as it, but you haven't changed your behavior to match, and that needs to change, or you'll walk right into a trap and let yourself lose."

"Any suggestions, then?" she asks pointedly, still looking at him unapprovingly.

"Bottom line, stop acting like a supporting character in someone else's story," he says, looking at her firmly. "You are the main character in a play revolving around you, and you are the powerful player in the cast, the queen these counts and duchesses want to lay low. So stop acting like a prim princess that hasn't come into her own, act like the veteran queen you are and lay your enemies to waste."

He says this while looking into the distance, waving his arm with the last as though clearing pieces from a board game. Autumn leans back and blinks at him for a pair of long moments before responding.

"Wow, that actually was a good pep talk," she says with a nod.

"It's kinda my thing, when I choose to do it," he says with a toss of his head, turning to look at her. "So, what would a queen do, if she were in your position?"

"I don't know, I've never considered what queens think," she admits with a frown, looking at the dark sky, clouds coming in from the west.

"You're a Celt, you worship Brighid," he says with a thoughtful frown and a toss of his head. "She's queen of the gods and not humbled by her husband, if I recall, she wears the pants in that relationship. So, what would Brighid do?"

"Oh, that's simple," she says with a tilt of her head and an eyebrow raised. "She'd burn anyone disrespectful of her authority to ash and cinder with divine fire."

"So, there's your answer," he says with a nod of his own. "Find the Council and set them aflame."

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Autumn says with a frown at him. "They've worked the politics of the area in order to cast me as the villain here, not the heroine."

Richard snorts with a smirk, "You're thinking too black and white. Do you think anyone here but Jocelyn sees me as a hero?"

"Well…" she blinks, thinking over the question.

"I'm a gray that most of the area can live with, that's why there's not an angry mob with pitchforks at the gates," he says, pointing at the front of the Bastion to the South. "Besides, it's not like you have to beat these guys on your own. You'll have security guys from me for blade work and hand to hand, no need to sully yourself with that, and the Vohls won't pull their support from you."

"I wish I was confident about the Russians as you are," she says with an unhappy frown.

"Sis, I'm not blind, I see the way Stan looks at you, and I know he's been waiting on you for every stage of your relationship," he says, making her fidget uncomfortably in embarrassment. "And objectively, he's the leader of the White Vohls, with an impeccable background. With him backing you up, you can get back into the good graces of the Rabbis. It'll just take a little while."

"You said they are going to make life tough for you because you won't turn me over," she says, frowning in thought.

"It's a power play, they tried to come off as righteous and I told them no, so we're posturing right now," he says with a shrug. "I hate politics, doesn't mean I don't know how to play the game. Tasha and Mischa have been helping me a lot with that the last few years, not to mention all the dealing at Hoffman's. Besides, the underlying reason they're really upset is the loss of respect from the other factions because they couldn't take down a low level Celtic Witch when she literally walked right into their open arms and they had home field advantage."

"Oh, I guess I did," she says with a blink, processing that. "I didn't think of it that way."

Richard laughs at her reaction, "Sis, you do not want to see the bill they tried to make me pay for the destruction of their spellbooks and scrollworks. I read the contract and they were warded against the exact spell you used to toast them."

"Well, not _exactly_ that spell," she amends, having a good idea of what they would have used compared to what she used.

"Whatever, you kicked ass," he says with a wave. "Then shattered their guardian golem and beat feet before they could get you. They now look like a bunch of limp dicked old men that can't take on a middling fringe kitchen witch. They're overcompensating to try and appease their dignity and whatnot."

"And how does bringing fire to my enemies fix that?" Autumn frowns with a sigh, not seeing where he is going with this.

"To quote Conan about what is greatest thing in life, 'To crush you enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of the women'," he says with a theatrical voice mimicking the foreign actor that had a heavy accent.

"What?" she asks, confused now, looking at him sideways.

"You beat down this council, and have witnesses see you do it," he explains. "Preferably Stan, someone from the Norse, Odin preferably but Thor or the Warriors Three would do, maybe Sif, and some folks from the Texas Rangers and Merc Guild. Hell, we can make a show of it and do it downtown."

"Why?" she asks with a shake of her head and looking at him with a bewildered expression. "I'm trying not to be the bad guy, won't fighting only prove that?"

"We're past avoiding a fight, remember, think like a Queen, with a capital Q," he says, shaking a finger at her. " 'If you strike a King, you _must_ kill him'," he quotes to her, and she starts to nod as understanding begins to set in. "They tried to have you captured, humbled and brought low, and how much faith do you have that they would be satisfied with words once you were brought before them for judgement? As though they are in a position to judge you?"

She snorts sardonically at that, "No faith at all. They'd probably have my thumbs removed and cut off one leg at the ankle as well as blinding, if I recall the last person who didn't toe the line."

"So maiming and possible death is what they have in store," he says simply, nodding and shrugging. "Call them out, set the time and place, I'll work with the other factions to ensure a fair battle, as fair as I can manage with you having an upper hand if I can, with all of us as the referees. Local law enforcement won't be involved because you've done nothing illegal in their eyes, and this Council only has vague accusations and hearsay. And besides, even with everything else that's happened locally the last couple weeks, you're one of us now, you're a Texan."

He gestures at the area with his arms with the last, indicating the entire Houston area with the last.

"I don't know, Rich, this doesn't sound like me," she says after a few moments, shaking her head.

He takes a deep breath while looking at her steadily then reaches over and raps her solidly on the head with his knuckles, causing her to flinch away with a wince and holding her head.

"Stop thinking like a meek and weak willed bitch of a shopkeeper and think like a fucking Queen already," he says to her firmly, and she looks at him in shock. "Or at the very least a High Priestess, because like it or not, that's what you are, and you need to act like it, or the wolves will tear you down if they can."

He rises to his feet without another word, training sticks in hand and steps off the platform to leave her alone, still holding her stung head with a look of utter shock.

"So, Kris, what do you think?" Tony asks the older, more experienced Agogite as he finishes laying out their route on the map, looking for his opinion.

"Makes sense, I think it should work," he agrees with a nod, rubbing the rough stubble on his chin. "We'll adjust on the fly, of course, but the intent is straight forward enough."

"One other thing," Tony says, glancing at where the rest of the group is by the fire twenty yards away and he lowers his voice to keep their conversation private. "How would you feel about keeping track of Tim for me? Like, direct control?"

"You mean like, you tell me what to tell him and he answers and reports to me?" he asks in the same tone, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"Yeah, he's got a history with Maddie, and I'm not his favorite person and the feeling's mutual," Tony explains quietly. "He's still one of us, y'know, but I don't want to make things more difficult than they already are, after that stunt he pulled in Taiwan. You're both shapeshifters so the chain of command thing should be clearer and easier that way, I figure. If you're okay with it."

Kris snorts and chuckles low, "Are you kidding? Shit, I owe a couple drinks when we get back, for this. I get to order the high and mighty prince of the Wolf Clan for the rest of the journey? If I lose my right hand on the trip back I'll still count myself ahead."

"Hey, he's not your slave," Tony reminds him.

"Give me some credit, man," Kris says with a snort. "I'll be fair and balanced, I'm an instructor for the security guys back home and an Agogite. It just isn't the tender treatment he's used to."

"We're a bit short on tender treatment," Tony says with a tight half smile as he looks around. "We are literally in the wilds of China trying to cross thousands of miles of territory that ain't exactly friendly to get home. Tender is out the window."

"I got it," Kris says with a nod. "Don't worry, I'll keep him in line."

Tony fights to keep his composure as he looks over Trixie's wing and shoulder at the landscape below in the late morning light. They'd spent the remainder of the night in the forests then lifted not long after dawn, during which he caught sight of what looked like a military column of armored vehicles and soldiers in trucks approaching their last campsite. They'd gained altitude quickly and before the guns on the armored personnel carriers could aim at them they had been out of range and a few thousand feet above ground level, few in that convoy had expected something flying and had not been watching the skies. The ride out of Taiwan had been through nerve racking storms and so high that looking down was surreal and incomprehensible to his brain as being high altitude.

The view below him is that of a model of the Earth in close up, his senses heightened that he can see far more detail of the landscape and structures below, so now he cannot deny the truth, he is thousands of feet in the air with nothing between him and the ground but Trixie's wings. Fortunately it is only him and Maddie on Trixie, Ming riding with Tim and Kris with Bagira on the other Ptactors, so his strained breathing and tightened grip are not seen by them. He takes some comfort in the fact that Maddie in the saddle in front of him, flying and guiding the wyvern, has not commented by only reached back a hand and squeezed his own reassuringly.

"Can you see that?" Tony manages to ask over the wind streaming past them, both in long sleeves, Maddie's over her t-shirt and vest, Tony with his armor on and face exposed save for a pair of sunglasses to spare his eyes.

"What?" Maddie asks, looking to where he points to the Northwest, Bejing growing to their Northeast steadily.

"It's a dark crease in the land," Tony says, narrowing his eyes as he simply peers into the distance and the details start to become clearer to him. "I think it's a castle or… oh, it's the Great Wall."

He says the last with some puzzlement, "I didn't think the Wall was this far south and east."

"Rick didn't have a lot of reports from this neck of the woods, it was all the Xiangs, and Luang had most of the intel in his head," Maddie says with a frown of thought as she tries to see what Tony does, but fails at this distance. "What do you think?"

"We know the Mongols reestablished control of their home territory and they've been on and off in a war with China for control," Tony says, repeating what they both know and getting a nod from her in response. "They built the wall originally to help keep the Mongol hordes out, stands to reason they did the same now, so that may or may not be the actual border."

"If we cross it, we'll be out of Chinese direct control, and the tech was up when we lifted, still is," Maddie says with a frown. "And they have radio and phone communication like we do back home. They'll know there's fliers going north, if we get close to Beijing, they'll likely be unhappy."

"Between us we have managed to piss off the legal and illegal groups in China," Tony says with a wry expression. "Turn towards the wall, we'll see what Mongolia looks like."

"I'm surprised an AntiAircraft battery hasn't locked on us to try and shoot us down," Maddie comments as they turn slightly towards where he points, the Ptactors in their wake turning to follow. "We've passed over some of the military bases, they have to have seen us, and we can't go too high, or we can't breathe."

"The old AA guns locked onto the heat of the engines, only the really advanced stuff in the US used lasers and stuff for continuous tracking, and that level tech didn't survive long after the Shift and we aren't hot enough for heat seekers to lock on," Tony supplies, trying not to be worried as they continue their flight.

"That makes sense," Maddie says with a nod. "I figure we'll be over the wall in a few hours or so."

They continue to ride the high currents of air, Trixie beating her wings occasionally to pick up some altitude but largely riding the winds aloft, tilting one way or another at Maddie's direction. After a pair of hours, the wall in front of them a mile or so and below, Tony frowns hard while looking up and down the length of the wall.

"It's thicker than in the history books," he says over the wind to Maddie. "And it's definitely manned, they can see us and are ready."

"Are they going to try to shoot us down?" Maddie asks, her own personal concern.

"They look to have AA guns, not guided but big gunpowder things," he says tilting his head as he reads the positions below as they start to pass beneath them. "But they're pointed Northwest, across the border, not back towards us."

"You mean cannons, oriented to repel cavalry or besiegers," Maddie says with a nod, seeing the logic.

"No," he says with a shake of his head and realization. "They're elevated, designed to shoot up. The Mongols must have something that flies fighting for them."

"Well, that's going to make this part of the trip interesting…" Maddie says dryly and scans the skies around them for threats as the Chinese let the interlopers leave their territory and enter that of the Mongol Empire.

"I think you're using the wrong word there," Tony comments with a smirk of his own, still studying the emplacements as they fly over uncontested.

"Reminds me that you have yet to see Firefly," Maddie says with a shake of her head and an unseen frown. "I will educate you the moment we get home. It's a pure crime that you haven't seen it and is proof that Rick is neglecting his parenting duties."

"It's on my list," Tony says with a shake of his own head at her teasing tone.

They continue to glide forward, the day in its afternoon as they travel faster than a horse can gallop, and as the Great Wall begins to disappear behind them Tony spots a pair of silhouettes rise from the top of a distant tall hill in the west. He taps Maddie and points, to which she nods and banks Trixie away and beat for more altitude, Tony signaling back to the others that they have other fliers incoming. They rise higher as Trixie beats her wings, the Ptactors doing the same but Maddie doesn't race for the higher altitude against the pair approaching, already having a great lead on them, as well as not wanting to tire their mounts who have already been airborne for hours.

"They're Rocs," Tony says as he peers and studies the approaching outlines, clearer to him than the others. "Giant eagles, they have black, brown and gold colorings with some white on the wings."

"How big?" Maddie asks, glancing that direction and noting landmarks on the ground.

"They're… big," he says with a frown, glancing at Trixie then back at them. "Wingspan is a bit smaller than Trixie, I think, but they're larger than the Ptactors, and I think I see harnesses and riders on their backs."

"Well, that answers why the Chinese have real AA guns on the Wall," Maddie says with a nod. "What do you want to do?"

"We may or may not be able to take them, but they can't be alone, and if they decide to run and get help, we can't afford to run them down, especially if they split up," Tony says, thinking aloud.

"And I think I just spotted another pair to our East," Maddie says, tapping him and pointing to two spots in that direction against a smudge of white clouds.

"That answers that," Tony says with a shake of his head as he signals back to the others, then taps Maddie on the shoulder and points to a low mountaintop below. "Take us to ground, we can meet them on our feet, and the magic should come up in the next hour, and I may be able to set up a ward to protect us for a bit if things go sour."

She nods and Trixie dives at Maddie's steering, nudging her to the indicated spot on the mountainside below, the Ptactors following them and distantly the mounted Eagles adjusting their courses to follow them. Tony's heart is in his throat and he fights not to close his eyes as the altitude drops and the ground rushes up at them, wind cutting at his cheeks until Trixie opens her wings about a thousand feet up, slowing down their descent but now they are covering the ground at prodigious speeds below the spot Tony had picked on the ground. Maddie knows her business, though, and they fly up to the side of the short mountain with only tilting to steer as they bleed of speed, until Maddie has them backflap and land on the shoulder of the rise of ground, not a great defensible position from air opponents, but not horrible either. The open area allows space for the others to land if they decide to parlay rather than outright attack, as well.

Tony steadies his breath and starts to work off the straps that keep him in the saddle, and with only slightly shaking hands he manages to lower himself to the ground without help. Maddie is out after him and lands in a crouch next to him, having leapt from the saddle easily. Tony pulls DrageBien from his side and holds it in bow form as he studies the sky, the two pairs of birds joining into one V formation. They circle above them, a thousand feet up or so, their own mounts anxious as Tony and the others are now all on the ground and waiting to see what they will do. The lead eagle drops from the formation and angles to the other end of the open patch of land they'd landed on, the other three reforming and continuing to circle.

The Roc flares out forty yards from them or so, landing and its raptor eyes staring directly at Trixie, whose back is also hunched and eyes locked on the other predator. Tony is not paying attention to that, though, as a man dismounts from the harness across the back of the giant bird. The body of the Roc is twelve feet from the base of the tail feathers to the base of its neck, the head shorter than a Ptactor's but wider and with a mean, sharply hooked beak. The man dismounting from the back of the bird wears leather armor and has a short recurve bow in hand and quiver over his shoulder as he eyes them warily at the distance.

Tony can see the man's dark complexion, folds on the edges of his eyes and dark brown eyes at this distance, the worn and well used but maintained equipment, as well as the cautious way the man approaches. Tony shifts his bow to hang across his back and approaches the man with open arms and open hands, trusting the others to watch his back if necessary. The man eyes him suspiciously, his stance unchanged as he walks slowly forward towards Tony.

"Who are you? And why do you travel in our skies?" the man asks, Tony not having to use the metal language charm around his neck to understand, as the man speaks Chinese, the dialect of the region.

"We are travelers, trying to return home," Tony says, gesturing to the east. "We are not well like by the Chinese, and were in a hurry to exit their territory. We mean no harm and wish only to be upon our way."

The man relaxes slightly as he assesses Tony and his group, deciding that the odd band may be just that.

"Where is home?" the man asks, Tony judging him to be in his twenties.

"Texas, in America," Tony says, gesturing that way again. "I've been traveling since I was stranded in India."

The man blinks in surprise at the statements, "You traveled all that way? By wing?"

"No, only picked up the fliers recently, actually," Tony explains with a shrug. "I had to go mostly alone for most of it, me and one other."

The man tilts his head to the side, the bow lowered as he relaxes a bit more, the surprise overriding him, "That sounds like a tale."

"It is," Tony says with a smile. "May we pass?"

The man frowns in thought, then looks up to the other Rocs above, "I cannot grant free passage. The Khan's court must do that for traders."

"We are not traders, we only wish to pass through and go home," Tony counters. "We will not use your roads. I have coin for anything we may need to purchase to continue on."

"I am only a soldier, senior of a few," the man says with a shake of his head. "I cannot make that decision."

"Then send a rider," Tony says, pointing to the birds above. "We will stay here for the night, and in the morning when the rider returns they will tell us what I must do to continue on our way."

The man contemplates it for a moment then nods before backing up to his bird and mounting it while it continues to eye Trixie warily and is quickly airborne again. After it joins the formation for a few minutes, during which Tony assumes they converse with handsignals or some such, one breaks away and flies to the northwest, the others scattering except one, which lands back in the clearing. The man dismounts again and approaches with his bow still out, but not as cautious as before.

"The others are spread around and watching this area," the man says with a wave to the area around them. "Kill me and they will know and you will be run down and killed in less than a fortnight."

"Not my intention," Tony assures him with a shake of his head. "We'll make camp, and we will share our meal with you. If you are permitted?"

"Very well," the man says, obviously not comfortable being alone with them but resigned to his duty.

The rider, Jingu, sits warily in the circle of the group that surrounds the campfire they have built, Bagira stirring the thick stew in the two gallon cauldron they'd unpacked from their mounts. They have rations and can hunt off the land, but shapeshifters eat a lot of food, since they burn through calories like mad to allow their bodies to do the things they do. Even though they hadn't done and crazy heroics or healings they still needed to eat a lot, especially protein, to maintain muscle mass and weight.

"What can you tell us of this nation, as we are but visitors here," Ming says in Chinese, though he regards her with an odd expression, obviously not used to either women talking to him or her appearance as both spellcaster and fighter, not to mention her dark pink hair.

"You are the leader?" Jingu asks Tony, seeing how the others treat him, and Tony nods. "But you are young," he says, looking at Kris who is obviously far older as the Agogite waters their mounts.

"It's complicated, but…" he pauses, glancing at where Tim helps Kris and he and Ming sit at the fire with the young man while Bagira cooks. "My father is an important man in my homeland, I was stranded in India, and these are his people, they came to help me get home."

Jingu nods, glancing at the party again before speaking, "They are all animal-touched."

"They are shapeshifters, yes," Tony says, knowing that is one of the terms here for someone infected with LycV.

"Madelyn Michaels, Wolf," Maddie says with a gesture to herself from where she is sitting next to Tony and leaning her back on his side, writing in a log book.

"Ming Xiang, Tiger," Ming says, repeating the greeting.

The guard blinks and glances at the others who are busy, "They are your servants?"

Tony snorts, "No, they are my friends. We protect each other, while we travel to get home. It just worked out that I'm our leader while we journey. From what I've read, we are now in the Mongol Empire, is that right?"

"Yes," Jingu says with a nod. "Our lord is the great Khan, descended from Ghengis, who rules our lands with honor and greatness."

Maddie glances at Tony with a raised eyebrow, but he ignores her look.

"I didn't realize that your empire reached this far," Tony comments as Bagira spoons stew into serving bowls for everyone.

"We expanded when the chaos reigned elsewhere, but the Khan saw the opportunity and rode hard to push our borders to the sea," he continues with a nod as the hot beef stew is handed to him. "Here the Chin have held us for the time being, but it is only a matter of time before we roll over their wall and push beyond it. We have already reached the sea to the north and northeast."

"That is impressive," Maddie says as Tony stirs his stew thoughtfully, accepting a bowl from Bagira. "Is trade and travelers welcome in your lands?"

"From the west, yes, we have trade with the Rus, after the decade of war which we have finally settled on this last season," he says with a nod as he warily accepts a bowl from Bagira. "That you travel with so many animal-touched is odd, we have few within our borders, and those are kept as slaves and servants, since they are so strong and heal so quickly."

"Where I come from they are free, just like any other man or woman," Tony says before Maddie or anyone else can speak, he can see a tense expression on Maddie's face as she eats. "It is a tradition in our homeland, that people are free to choose, and that we control our government, not the other way around."

"There are exceptions, within our borders, though," Maddie points out. "Our… leader for all the shapeshifters is not selected but has proven himself and seized control from one who had no honor, and had killed his wife through deceit."

"There are many animal-touched where you come from?" Jingu asks, pausing from scooping stew into his mouth.

"Only a small percentage of the population, but they are integrated with those they live among, and live side by side with normal people," he says with a glance at Maddie, who nods while still eating. "I work there to fight monsters and criminals who terrorize the people, with Maddie as my partner," he adds the last with an arm around her and a squeeze.

The conversation stalls after that and Tony sets up a ward for the night as they rotate watch duties until the morning when the messenger is expected to return.

Autumn stands in the large park bordered on its sides by the City of Houston's official government buildings, City Hall, Police Headquarters, Paranormal Division Headquarters, the Federal Government's Military Response Team Headquarters and the Texas Rangers' Operations Building. Despite her reservations, or perhaps because of them, Richard had completely overruled her when she balked after he told her that he'd had Stan and his family set up the meeting and challenge, with Stan acting as her Second. She'd yelled at him for about ten minutes afterwards, but he'd simply shrugged and pointed out she could back out and run away to Mexico if she wanted, he'd pay for it. So she hit him on the head with her staff and resentfully accepted the fight to come, though she has noticed that Stan has been careful to ensure they haven't been alone since the challenge was announced. He can hide, but he'll get what's coming to him soon enough as well…

There's much more fanfare than she would like for the duel, as well, the grassy fields of the park with spectators from the various magic users in town of all denominations and cults, some only a dozen or so strong all the way up to a few hundred having gathered from the Mage Academy, most with notebooks and pens in hand. In total, she'd estimate over a thousand has gathered from across the city, not counting the forty or so shapeshifters that Richard had arrived with in their leather vests and t-shirts over blue jeans and two or three weapons apiece, or the members of the major groups in town. The Rabbis had declared themselves neutral and thirteen of them are gathered in the center as arbitrators of the dispute, which had apparently cost Richard more than a few favors and cold hard cash to keep them from siding with the delegation from the Appalachian Council. Said Council representatives formed up across from them on this football field sized stretch of green within the park that the Texas Rangers had marked off with pickets and white cloth strung between them.

The Council Representatives consist of the Warlock that had paid her store a visit, two robed older men in their fifties with scowls on their faces she recalls as being Druids in the Celtic and Welsh styles, and three women in loose robes that she doesn't recognize but she'd heard of when she used to live in New York. The three women were the Council's powerhouse group, the enforcers for the magic users in the Northeast, above Maryland and the D.C. area. They consist of a young woman in her mid-twenties with raven black hair and a beautiful, unmarred complexion wearing a chain mail shirt and a long bladed sword on her hip, an older woman with bright red hair probably five to ten years Autumn's senior in her mid to late forties wearing simple robes with charms dangling from her wrists and plump waist, and a much older woman who is slightly bent with age and white hair flowing free and only a necklace of charms and a belt of casting materials on her belt.

Autumn, seeing them across the field after exiting the Rangers' Operations building Richard had arranged for her to await the duel in, is glad that her brother had the foresight to prepare for the eventuality that one day she would have to fight a full on duel against rivals. She, personally, had figured she would use her charms from the store along with a few other spells she could store in the Staff of Babylon, and was surprised when a package had arrived at her store before the magic wave arrived that was too heavy for her to lift once the shapeshifter messenger from the Xiangs had placed it in her store. She was astonished to find in the package a full set of dark steel armor within, to include an instruction pamphlet on what kind of clothing to wear underneath it to prevent chafing and how to properly don it. Having no aversion to enchanting metal, unlike other witches and magic users, she then set about using her supplies of specialty ink to then inscribe spells of protection and enhancement on the armor in the old Celtic dialect before Atticus helped her strap into the unfamiliar armor.

She felt more than a little ridiculous as she rode in a horse drawn carriage behind curtains and then beneath a cloak to enter the Rangers' Operations center, not to mention more than a little hot as summer in Houston has hit full swing. But she'd drank water to stay hydrated in the stifling attire and stretched as she waited indoors for the agreed upon time to arrive and she had been escorted from the building. Now, walking down the paths towards the open field she feels slightly pompous and she cringes internally, as her escort is made up of not only Stan but four other White Vohls in pristine cloaks and light wood staves but an equal number of Black Vohls in equally pitch black robes that seem to drink light into their depths. The crowds that had gathered had parted for them and she enjoys the breeze on her face and slightly matted hair from sweating, still wearing the light grey cloak to conceal her armor.

She arrives at the front of her side of the open area where Richard waits with his shapeshifters, his sword stuck in the ground as he sits on the ground in a near sprawl, picking at the green grass of the field absently. She frowns down at him as she stops a few yards away and he grins at her with a wink, which causes her to fume slightly, promising herself to thunk him firmly on the head for all the pomp and circumstance he's put into this. She mentally settles herself and now looks across the field as Stan walks to where the Rabbis wait in the center of the field, the Warlock advancing from the other side as well. She takes a deep breath and begins to recite poetry in her head in Gaelic to help her concentrate and prepare her mind for the conflict ahead as Stan speaks as her second before returning only a few minutes later.

"They are sending their Coven of Three," Stan says to her when he arrives, gesturing across the field at the witches opposite, the words spoken in such a way that the capital letters are evident.

"No surprise there, they are their enforcers back home," Autumn acknowledges with a deep breath.

"They claim you have fallen to the dark arts, and that you represent imbalance," he says, speaking formally in the tones of the official challenge. "As those who allowed you to learn and grow when you first learned your arts, they claim responsibility for stopping you from further corrupting the ways of the Celts."

"Oh, that's rich," Autumn says under her breath with a shake of her head. "That's a case of the pot calling the kettle black if I ever heard it."

"When you are ready, step onto the field and the contest will begin," Stan says with a wave at the grass on the other side of a white spray painted line. "The fight is until submission or death."

"So, either they drag me off unconscious or they kill me, no pressure," she says with a nod, taking a deep breath to steady her heartbeat, surprised at her nervous she feels.

"Remember, you're a high priestess," Richard says just loud enough to hear from where he lounges on the grass, nonchalantly rising to his feet and dusting his jeans off of nonexistent dirt. "Go out there and act like one."

She looks at him sidelong and after a moment of thought nods agreement, now is not the time to act like the scared girl she was before their father died. Now is the time to act the way she wished she had acted back then, courageously and with confidence in her abilities and her power. She turns back towards the field, the Rabbis having cleared it to stand around the perimeter at even intervals, her face set into that of determination and she reaches up and releases the clasp that holds her cloak in place. Her armor, a dull grey metal arrangement of plates that Rich had assured her was the best for her style of movement and would provide adequate protection on everything but the joints, now has the short lines of Celtic runes bisected along the length of the spells glowing across its surface in the spectrum of primary colors only, red, blue and yellow lines of script curving along the edges and spiraling along within the plates. More than a few of those watching pause and admire the armor, the witches opposite her narrowing their eyes as her armor is revealed and she steps forward with her staff in hand over the line on the grass.

She continues to stride forward, still bareheaded as she cannot stand the confinement of her head while casting and accepting that she will have to be more careful of anything aimed at her head. The witches hesitate for a moment and the old crone of the three speaks quickly for a moment then the three enter the field as well. The dark haired maiden of the three jogs directly at Autumn while the other two spread out behind her, the crone only moving to the side just inside the field while the mother figure moves forward a couple dozen yards or so at an angle. The maiden stops at about the half way point of the field before Autumn is a quarter of the way across and the three witches speak in unison, a single word of power reverberating and resounding between them, stronger than any alone could cast it.

Autumn feels the shockwave of power hit her just before she is able to plant her staff and she fights not to cry out in pain as she freezes in mid step and the ancient word of power holds her completely frozen and helpless. The maiden sprints at her now, long Celtic sword drawn and held to the side ready to sweep forward to cut her down. The runes on Autumn's armor glow and she places her foot on the ground with a gasp of pain, the magic of the runes kicking in and pushing the magic off of her, two lines etched in yellow on her legs pulsing and faded at the expenditure of their enchantment. The maiden swings across at her as she brings the Staff of Babylon across and parries the attack up and away, bringing it around in a counterattack that the maiden jumps back from, the blunt end of the weapon narrowly missing her face.

Autumn moves forward with another pair of attacks but the younger woman is much faster and very well practiced with her weapon, so she immediately shifts her focus, slamming her staff down and erecting a protective ward around her a couple yards from her in a circle. The ward flashes up with intense blue light and a series of explosions flash across its surface, magic bolts of destruction cast at her from the mother witch to her left on the other side of the field. Autumn absorbs the force of the attack and leans the staff towards the maiden who is reaching for a charm on her belt, but Autumn completes her own short chant and a wall of force slams into the younger woman and sends her flying back over a dozen yards to land hard on the field. Autumn follows up with a quick chant as she places a hand on a line of runes on her breastplate, activating the spell there and with a quick hand gesture green vines erupt from the ground around the dazed maiden, pulling tight and immobilizing her, to include vines slithering snugly over her face and mouth to prevent spells.

She turns her attention back to the other two witches to find a large boulder bigger than an SUV flying through the air from where the crone stands at her. She plants the staff and grits her teeth as the multi-ton stone strikes her ward, shattering both the rock and her ward into tiny pieces that fly off in numerous directions. She staggers back from the pain the broken ward sent splitting through her skull and blinks away the stars in time to see five wolves blink into existence around the mother, each as large as a shapeshifter in animal form. A shout of command and the wolves sprint at her and begin to circle, the mother moving her hands around as she maintains command of the summoned creatures. Autumn turns in places while spinning her staff around her, chanting a pair of phrases then activating the spell on her forearm with a shout of command.

A wolf darts in to bite at her, but she swings the heavy staff quickly, hours of training with it making the swing easy and familiar, and the wolf staggers to the side as it is consumed with divine white flames. The creature screams in pain and the others stagger as the pain feeds back to the mother, and Autumn moves forward at the shocked creatures, her staff darting out quickly to make contact with each one's pelt in turn, the mere touch of the staff sending each one into pillars of white flame. She steps past the last and towards the mother who is on her knees holding her head and screaming, activating another vine spell and roping the older witch into the firm embrace of the vegetation.

Autumn turns and raises the staff as movement catches her eye and a boulder larger than the last, this one the size of a tractor-trailer, tumbles through the air at her. She speaks another activation incantation and the boulder slows then halts to float a handspan from the tip of her raised staff, rotating slightly in the mid-day, overcast light. Autumn glances at the crone and though she wants to throw the stone back she drops it to the ground between them instead, not wanting to chance the spectators getting hurt. She pauses in thought as to go left or right around the obstruction as it lands before her with a reverberating thud she can feel in her teeth, and decides to do what Rich would do, the unexpected. She speaks a short chant and a pair of spells on the armor across her thighs flare and she leaps over the fifteen foot tall rock to arc down and land easily on the other side on bent knees.

As she lands the crone lashes out with her hands and daggers of light floating around her shoot forward at her, almost faster than the eye can see. Autumn spins her staff around her in a defensive manner Rich had forced her to use, the technique used to deflect arrows and spears by him and the shapeshifters. She is not nearly as fast, though, and she deflects many of the magical projectiles with her own enchanted weapon, but a half dozen get past her defenses and she staggers as her armor is struck hard by the impacts as though someone had hit her with baseballs thrown by a major league baseball pitcher, denting it in a half dozen places. She stumbles back from the barrage and ducks to the side narrowly avoiding the last lance of yellow light, a long line of pain tracing along her left ear.

She braces herself up on her feet with the staff as she feels blood leak from her head down to her neck and into her clothing beneath, realizing she must have gotten cut bad for it to soak down so quickly. She reaches up quickly and slaps the blood on her neck and places that hand on the staff over her other hand and shoves the staff into the ground with a quick command and a short ward an arm's length from her flares into existence just before a solid lance of dark blue light strikes it. The ward holds against the spear of magical energy and Autumn takes the moment bought to blink her eyes and gather her senses about her, blinking across at the crone thirty yards distant. After a pair of breaths, during which the crone is raising her hands high while chanting, a charm in her hand ready to be used and lighting flashing in the clouds above, Autumn realizes she has to do what a High Priestess would do, not a common Celtic Witch.

"~~~~," she roars at the crone, the word of power shattering the blood ward the old woman had erected around her and causing the witch to scream in pain as her legs buckle and crack as they impact on the ground, using the ancient power word _kneel_.

Autumn strides forward through her ward which dissipates as she leaves it, walking up to the crone who is shuddering on her broken knees as she keens at the sky in pain from her broken legs. Autumn's face is firm and grim as she walks up and punches the woman hard along the line of her jaw, likely breaking it but also knocking her out. She breathes deeply as she looks down at the limp figure, then back across the field to the incapacitated fighters then looks over at the nearest Rabbi.

"I've subdued my opponents, the field is mine," she says simply, daring him to say otherwise.

"The dispute is yours," the Rabbi says with a nod of acknowledgement with a loud, authoritative voice, which is echoed by the other Rabbis as Autumn turns and strides to her side of the field.

Stan and the other Vohls bow deep in respect to her as she reaches them, but Rich slow claps off to the side with a grin as she frowns at him.

"That's better," he says with a nod and his smile undimmed as he continues to clap slowly. "That's what a High Priestess does. She kicks ass and doesn't bother taking names."

Autumn blinks at him, then turns to look over her shoulder with a frown, "You know, I actually don't know their names."

Tony and the others dismount from their saddles and harnesses in a large courtyard within the Mongolian capital of Karakorum. Originally founded in the thirteenth century by Ghengis Khan, the city fell into obscurity over the centuries and only uncovered ruins remained until the Shift. After the surge of magic into and out of the world like the shifting tides the Mongols, who had kept their heritage strong throughout the ages and suffered far fewer casualties from the Shift because of it, were prepared to quickly take the offensive and not only solidify their hold on the country but to push back in all directions against their borders. The result was an empire many times larger than it had been prior to the Shift, ranging northeast all the way to the Bering Straight, and pushing west and conquering all of Tajikistan, most of what was once Kazakhstan and much of Uzbekistan as well, then well into the north and seizing much of what was once Russia but has fallen into smaller kingdoms.

Their trip over the land to where the current Khan, Emperor of all Mongolia, resides in the capital had passed over cities fashioned much as they had been back in the time of Ghengis, using stone and wood built by hand, and the old cities that had been used prior to the Shift mostly abandoned. They had seen some movement in the abandoned cites as they passed, but could tell that it was scavengers digging up precious metals and the like, not those residing there. It had taken most of the day, but they had arrived under escort of the same riders who had found them all the way to the stone constructed palace that rivals the size of the Dali Llama's back in Tibet, surrounded by a large stone built city.

Tony dismounts ahead of Maddie and the others, having discussed that since the shapeshifters of this land are not first class citizens it would be best if he were to do all the talking, putting aside the fact that he was placed in charge by Luang prior to his death and no one seems inclined to change that, except possibly Tim. The shapeshifters wear loosely stitched clothing with their leather vests over them along with their weapons of choice, but Tony wears his armor as well as a black leather cloak he'd enchanted on the mountain side using notes from a field book he'd brought with some magic spells from Aunt A and he had been working on. The shapeshifters look generally impressive in mostly uniform attire and good weapons in addition to the generally killer attitudes they carry, even if Ming and Maddie have pink and purple hair, respectfully. Tony hopes his own appearance adds a more seriousness to it, as the smoky grey and black armor with the dark cloak over it adds a darker and more serious aspect to it, though he internally just hopes he doesn't look like a teenage emo, even if Maddie assured him he looks good.

The reactions of those in the large courtyard/landing pad that is nearly as large as a football field, it has to be to accommodate the flying mounts landing in it, are mixed but his enhanced hearing picked out that most of their heartrates pick up as Trixie and the Ptactors landed. Now as he looks around and steps away from Trixie, the others in the group doing the same, he steps towards who he guesses is the Captain of the guard guessing from the markings on his armor. He wears scale armor that reaches down to his knees with plate on his arms and legs, as do the other guards in the area, thirty two in all if his count is right. Whereas the rest of the guards wear an iron mask over their faces to make them indistinguishable from each other as they all wear the black metal and bright green silk of the guards, the Captain has his face uncovered.

The man is tall, over six feet tall and broad to match, Tony would put him at over three hundred pounds, not much of it fat and he moves forward towards Tony as though he could dance in his armor because he acts as though its weight doesn't bother him at all. The Captain has a curved long sword at his side, a heavy dagger on the other and no other weapons he can see, though the other guards are mixed with bows and long bladed spears in addition to what the Captain wears. Tony approaches the man and stops a half dozen yards away with the others spread out behind him and he bows deeply to the guard, hoping this entire encounter will work out relatively smoothly and they can be on their way.

"I am Anthony Hessberg and these are my traveling companions," Tony says using the Blessing of Babylon charm around his neck as he bows, the magic up. "We seek only to continue on our journey back to our homeland after having the misfortune of being stranded in this part of the world."

He pauses after bowing, the others behind him doing the same and following his lead, but when the man doesn't reply or bow in return Tony rises back to an upright position and makes eye contact with the Captain who is staring at him openly.

"If you are curious as to my scars," Tony begins with a wave at his colorfully scarred left side. "A man attempted to stab me in the back after I spared his life following a duel, and the resulting explosion caused this."

"You are sky touched," the Captain says, gesturing to the sky above them. "In our northern lands the sky lights up with colors in the night, during special moments and if the season is right."

"We have the same lights in the far north of my homeland as well, and I am told that it resembles that occurrence," he says with a nod of agreement.

"The priests will wish to speak with you of your incident," the Captain says, giving a gesture to another guard who bows quickly and strides off purposefully.

"I understand that this is your land, and we have no wish to have any disagreements with you," Tony says, trying to be diplomatic and hoping the translation holds. "We wish only to continue along our way and go home. My father and my family are awaiting my return eagerly."

The Captain's face is carved into a hard frown, his professional mask unmoving since Tony had laid eyes on him, "It is not for me to decide. Your mounts are unique, and such steeds should be reported to the Khan, as he is interested in any others who may ride the winds as we do."

"May I ask what is the procedure is in your court from this point? I am not from your lands and do not know the protocol," Tony asks politely, sensing the increased heart rate from Maddie, then the others behind her reacting to her own reaction, Maddie with a translation charm of her own around her neck.

"You will speak to the Khan's minister, and judgement will be made," the Captain says simply with a hard nod. "You must surrender your weapons and come with me. Your… companions must surrender their weapons as well and will be guests here until judgement has been completed."

Tony raises a hand to forestall Maddie from moving, as he sensed her shift in balance to allow her to be able to leap in action, and though she halts a low growl still escapes her lips.

"They are all animal touched," he says. "And we have had others we have met during our journey who have been less than honorable in their conduct with both them and myself."

"You suggest we are dishonorable," the Captain says, bristling and his frown growing deeper, the other guards stiffening at the accusation.

"I wish to know the possible outcomes of my meeting with the minister prior to disarming and allowing my companions to be at your mercy," Tony says evenly, glancing around at the guards surrounding them.

The guard snorts with a short derisive laugh, though his expression in unchanged, "You are at our mercy even now. Any belief that you have any chance of escape, should you try it, is purely an illusion."

"I assure _you_ , it is not illusion," Tony replies evenly. "If I were to give the word, we could kill all of you within the space of perhaps a dozen breaths. You may or may not ring the alarm, but you and those here would be dead, and if we failed to leave this compound, we would certainly kill a thousand or more before we died. Of that I assure you with no doubt."

The Captain is scowling now, finally changing his expression and is about to retort angrily when Tony hears a pair of chimes ring to the side and the Captain closes his mouth. The Captain bows low while still standing as a small entourage of guards in silver lined armor enters with bows readied and arrows on the string, surrounding and guarding a young man in his early twenties. The half dozen guards move easily and almost silently, and Tony guesses them as elite guards, as the young man is good looking and in shape, standing at six feet tall with a slightly slender build. The young man has classically Mongolian dark skin and slight folds at his eyes and wears green and brown studded leather with bare upper bicepts, with both sides of his head shaved and the center looking like a wild horse mane.

"I have never in my lifetime heard anyone make such a claim against Mogo," the young man says with an amusing tone, Tony and the others bowing low and copying the Captain, Mogo.

"Not a claim, simply stating facts, sir," Tony says evenly again, rising from his bow as Mogo does. "My companions are highly trained in combat and are all seasoned veterans of hard campaigns in our homeland. I am also well trained and have fought in my father's campaign to expand his holdings."

"Seasoned veterans?" the young man says, looking Maddie over with a raised eyebrow and a grin while rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I will admit you have some beautiful young women with you, but they do not all appear to be seasoned veterans."

"Would you care for a demonstration, sir?" Tony asks, twisting his head as he looks at the other man, fighting the stab of jealousy as the other man looks over his girlfriend appraisingly.

"What do you propose?" the man says with a smile as he crosses his arms with humor in his tone.

"The Captain and my second, single combat," he says with a gesture at Mogo. "Not to the death, but to unconsciousness or submission. If the honorable Captain is willing, of course."

He says the last purely as bait, which the Captain takes with the frowning expression back in place.

"I accept, I have fought animal touched before and am not afraid," the Captain says, waving the men to move away, and they do, forming a cleared area away from the compound walls of about twenty yards across in a circle opposite of where the mounts are at.

They all walk to the circle, Tony and his group on one side, the young man and the Captain at the other, all of the guards more alert and talking among themselves, some placing bets. Tony nods deliberately at Maddie, who nods in return and steps up on their side of the circle, which earns a shocked silence from the guards, as they had expected Kris, as obviously the oldest and largest of the group to have been Tony's second.

"This is an insult," Mogo says flatly as he gestures at Maddie. "She is a girl, an adolescent."

"It is an insult, to _me_ ," Maddie says through her charm, to which Mogo blinks in surprise and then scowls at her. "You are beneath me, but I will deign to fight you simply for the value it will provide your men on the use of sword, fist and foot."

Mogo draws his long sword in one hand and spins it in his hand, warming up his wrist as Maddie reaches back and pulls her gladius from its sheath, waiting for a moment before activating the flaming blade with a burst of magic. The young man has quirked an eyebrow as Maddie spins her own sword, leaving a trail of flame around her briefly before advancing on the larger and older man.

Mogo attacks from on high, two hands on his blade now, and Maddie, though likely stronger due to the LycV in her body, does not block it, but deflects it to the side and darts opposite while reaching out and holding the flat of the blade against the Captain's side for a moment. Mogo swings backhanded at her and she leans back and rolls away and back to her feet, deflecting another pair of attacks then attacking in return, which he blocks easily. Maddie may be stronger and faster and have great training, but this man has far more experience than her, even if she has experienced a lot in the last months. Maddie paces herself, though under no illusions that the man will tire easily, and the second time she holds the blade against the same part of the armor she hears him curse at the touch, the flame bringing the armor to uncomfortably hot temperatures.

She parries and dodges and then strikes again at the same area, and Mogo is now visibly shying away from that side, the heat becoming painful. She prods and pokes at the weakness, and her own attacks against the other man start to cause large red sparks to break away from his weapon. After a long exchange of a dozen attacks back and forth that she refuses to disengage from, Mogo's blade breaks a third of the way down from the tip, the wreckage spinning off towards the circle around them. Maddie backs up and begins to circle from a few paces away as Mogo looks at the blade in anger and tosses it away with a scowl on his face.

"Without the blade, you are nothing," he accuses her with an angry gesture.

"Very well," she says, sheathing the sword then pulling the scabbard from her shoulders and tossing it to Tony who catches it at the side, all without looking away from her opponent's gaze.

Mogo blinks then smiles, pulling his dagger as he approaches her in a crouch, having reach and size on her with short blades. Maddie doesn't draw her father's knife or the twin Viking daggers from her back but only keeps her hands in front of her, using the Tiger Kung Fu the Xiang's had taught her. Mogo jabs at her and she dodges and skirts the attacks, then dodges into the side she had heated and is barely starting to cool off, landing a pair of attacks there. Her hands shift to furred claws in a flash and back to normal, the air pierced with the sound of iron being bent and scraped. Mogo backhands at her and he draws a red line across her upper arm as she retreats from his range, but he pauses to look down at the bent and damaged armor her two blows caused.

She bounces easily on her feet a half dozen yards away and motions him to come at her with her hands, eyes locked on her prey as she does. His own expression becomes determined as he moves forward again, and he attacks in fast and measured swipes of the blade interspersed with an occasional thrust, his off-hand jabbing and attempting to grapple with her. Maddie blocks and dodges the attacks without backing up, then grabs and holds the hand holding the weapon, twisting it then shoving her own elbow into the joint. Mogo muffles a cry of pain as she pivots and brings her knee up explosively into the side she had not attacked earlier, denting the armor into his body. She backs away from him as he stumbles back from her, two ribs broken and his arm hanging from his side.

He coughs blood onto the ground and takes a deep breath, a rib must have pierced his lung, then raises his remaining working hand and begins to advance again.

"Enough!" the young man at the side says with authority, raising his hand and causing Mogo to halt and turn to him with a painful bow. "Honor is satisfied, Captain. I need you working and unbroken, not spending the next month recovering, or worse, dead."

The young man approaches and the Captain bows as the man does, "As it is you will be down for some days as the healers mend you."

"If I may, sir," Tony says from his side of the circle, handing Maddie her weapons as he passes her and approaches the two men. "I have some healing capacity, as does one of my people. Let us begin his healing, as compensation for causing any inconvenience."

The young man smirks, "That is generous, but despite the inconvenience this was entertaining and informative. Mogo will go to our own healers to be attended to. Come with me, traveler."

"I am Anthony Hessberg," Tony says, introducing himself with a bow.

"I am Ogedai, third son of Subedai Khan, Emperor of Mongolia," the young man says with a bow of his head in reply to Tony's deep bow. "Come with me, and we shall discuss your interests and your travel through our Empire."

"I would be grateful to be able to settle the matter and continue on our journey home," Tony says politely.

"You will be required to speak with my father," Ogedai says, leading him and the others back towards the Ptactors. "I have never seen such creatures before. Are they native to your homeland?"

"They are not native anywhere," Tony replies honestly. "My father commissioned for their creation through a combination of science and magic. Though Trixie, the wyvern, was altered further by magic into what she is now."

"Wyvern," Ogedai says as he looks on the drake with a shake of his head in awe. "It is a magnificent creature. And you said the only of its kind?"

"As of a few weeks ago, yes," Tony confirms with a nod, not sure how to lie about it and unsure what would be the best course, deciding on the truth. "But I would not put it past my father to have created more since I left."

"You sound to have an ambitious father, just as I do," Ogedai says with a grin, turning to the younger man. "Is he a leader in your land?"

"He is animal touched, one of the greatest in our lands, and rules those like him within his territory, Texas and the surrounding areas," Tony says with a nod.

"We have those here, as well, mostly wolves, though we have some bears and tigers among them," Ogedai says with a nod, looking Tony's group over again with the appraising eye of a warrior this time. "Your entire party is animal touched?"

"Yes, we call them shapeshifters," he says with a nod.

"An apt name," he agrees, nodding. "Due to their ability to do just that, we cannot have them armed and walking about. We do not know you and your intentions. We have many enemies, and many have sent assassins in the past in many guises."

"We are strangers in a strange land and do not wish to be taken advantage of, so they will be unable to disarm until I am satisfied it is safe to be disarmed. My people will stay here and await my return," Tony says with a gesture at the others, Maddie frowning hard at him and he can feel her deactivate the charm around her neck.

"It's not a good idea for you to go walking around here alone," she says in English, trying for an easy tone. "If they try something we'll be separated and you'll be alone."

"I know, but we don't really have a choice, they have the Rocs and we can't escape them that way, we have to do this by the book and negotiate," he replies, reaching out and taking her hand for a quick squeeze that she returns. "I made it across the Himalayas and China, these walls can't keep us apart if we decide they won't."

"Be careful," she says with meaning and a smile, looking him in the eye.

With a nod Ogedai leads Tony away from the clearing where the rest of his group starts to settle in for the rest of the day and possibly night as he follows the son of another Khan into the palace complex.

"I don't like this," Maddie says, her voice low as she and the others sit inside a protective ward Ming had raised once they'd taken their gear off their mounts, though left the saddles on in case they needed to leave quickly.

"We ain't got a lot of options, Mad," Kris comments from across from her, bringing a large pot of stew slowly to a boil, the shapeshifters taking every opportunity to eat that they can, as their metabolism burns through calories far faster than a normal human does.

"Still don't have to like it," she says with a frown, glancing at the dozen or so visible guards around the edges of the clearing, which their fifteen yard circular camp and ward sits on one half of the large clearing and courtyard made landing pad for the eagles.

"Hessberg made the right call," Kris continues, taking a bowl from Ming, who had chopped up fresh carrots and potatoes for the stew and dumping it in. "Besides, even though the Mongols were portrayed as savages and barbarians, even Ghengis had rules and laws to follow. And then after him his descendants were structured and were actually pretty fair in their governing, all things considered."

Maddie tilts her head at him in surprise, "I didn't know you knew so much about the Mongols. I got the primer course when I came to the Horde because Rick's title, I didn't really memorize it."

"He took over the Pack just as I was getting ready to declare my thesis paper for my Master's Degree, and I chose Ghengis Khan," Kris explains. "It's in history, so I could try and pick up a job as a substitute teacher in town at a High School and maybe coach sports. At the time it was something to supplement the gun shop, until it makes enough money that I can get the loans and fee payments down to more manageable levels."

"You want to be a teacher?" Maddie asks, not having heard about this before when they talked, which usually revolved around guns, the Agoge and Horde related topics.

"No," he says with a snort. "Most teachers are women, and quite a few are single, and a guy like me would be a rock star on any High School campus, or College campus for that matter."

"You're joking, tell me you're joking," Maddie says with a theatrical roll of her eyes.

He chuckles and responds, "No, I'm not. I've dated and almost got married when I was in the army, but she was a dependapotomis, which I found out from her ex before I was dumb enough to tie the knot, thank God."

"What's a dependapotomois?" Tim asks from the side, oiling his rapier. "Something of the river?"

"A girl who marries you only so they can get the benefits of being a soldier's wife, because the pay is steady and the contracts last a while, and you're never home," he explains. "They don't put anything into the household and merely exist, contributing nothing to the relationship. Once I figured that out, I kept my eyes open, saw the things I'd been too enamored to see before, then dumped her. Got out a year or so later and moved to Houston from Georgia."

"Why Houston? Don't most vets stay near where they were stationed originally?" Maddie asks, curious.

"Didn't like Georgia," he says with a shrug and shake of his head. "Plus shit kept blowing up or going crazy and making national news in Atlanta, and I always wanted to live in Texas."

Maddie frowns in thought, then looks at Kris with a concerned expression after a few long moments.

"If the gun shop's struggling, why did you come with me?" she asks, unsure.

"The boss pays well for missions," he says with a shrug, referring to Richard. "The Agoge and New Orleans payments knocked a big dent into the loans and fees, and gave me a chance to expand my armory and ammo cache so I could be competitive. I've got a good assistant manager and Hoffman's checks up on Horde members' businesses when they're out of town on official Horde business, so there's no real risk of something going bad while I'm gone."

"Oh," she says, tilting her head as she absorbs that.

"Besides, you and they were going," he says, gesturing to Ming to indicate the Xiangs without saying Luang's name. "You needed a firearms expert and a 'strong ranger' as the Khan would say. And you two watched my back during the Agoge when I was struggling, I couldn't let you guys run off without me, you needed someone to watch your back."

"I've usually got my own back covered, thank you," she says with a joking laugh as he grins in return.

"True, you hold your own, but you've been in a few tough spots since the Agoge, and Hessberg wasn't around at the time to cover it," he says with a shrug. "You're like a little sister, always getting into trouble. You need your big brother to help you out, so here I am."

"Little sister?" she says with raised eyebrows and he grins back, unrepentant. "Sleep with one open for that one, buddy."

"Just remember what happens when you wake a sleeping bear," he says with his own chuckle, still slowly stirring the stew in its iron kettle.

Tony lowers himself into the chair in the large dining room, not banquet sized, but large enough to make him feel almost small in comparison to the size allotted to the long table and chairs. Across from him sits Ogedai, servants laying out a small buffet of food between them to pick from, filling cups with water cut with wine judging from Tony's sense of smell. The guards are still present, though only two are nearby with bows out but no longer with arrows on the string, having judged Tony as a threat but not as dangerous as a shapeshifter. Tony has no intention of giving them reason to doubt their decision unless absolutely necessary, he was not kidding when he told Maddie that nothing would keep them apart if they decided not to be.

"You have affection for your second in command?" Ogedai asks casually as he pulls a thick slice of venison onto a plate in front of him, glancing at him with a smile.

"That is not a term I would use to define our relationship," Tony says, knowing that Maddie would not consider herself under him in authority, even if he is calling the shots on this journey now. "She is my partner, and I am her mate, in the truest sense of the word, she is bonded to me, and will never take another."

"I am not familiar with the practices of the animal touched, so I am unaware," Ogedai says with a thoughtful nod. "She is a skilled fighter. Who taught her to fight?"

"My father did," Tony says, giving him the simplified version. "He trained most of those in my group, along with many others back home. He did it to ensure that even though they were the minority of the population they would not be subject to the prejudices or decisions of others, to give them power over their own destinies."

"You wish to continue your journey home," Ogedai says as he leans back in his chair easily, but Tony senses the dark eyes focused on him in a manner not too dissimilar from Maddie's when she is stalking prey. "But your home is far away, and there are many dangers between here and there. Even though we technically control the land up to the Straight, there are lawless areas, monsters emerge at random and there are those who oppose our rule who will not acknowledge a sign of safe passage from my father."

"It is my home," Tony says before the other man can continue, interrupting him between breaths. "My father and the rest of my family are there, a sister waiting for us, and I have three young siblings to be born in the next months. If the world separated you from those you hold dear, would you simply accept that you would never see them again and reside where you ended up?"

Ogedai's ponderous expression quickly spreads into a smile and a firm nod, "You are wise beyond your years, Anthony Hessberg."

"I have had good teachers," he admits with a bow of his head, picking up a piece of venison and sniffing it carefully before taking a bite of it.

"You will have to pay for safe passage, though for a little more than the standard fare you can also be authorized trade rights while you travel," Ogedai says, leaning forward again and taking a bite of his own food and cutting it up and eating as they talk, Tony doing the same, using his senses to ensure no poison is in the food.

"I am not familiar with what trade goods would be valuable along my route," Tony says with a frown of thought. "Though I can ask my father and see what he would suggest as trade goods. Perhaps I can pick up some things here that would be much more valuable back home, and be worth the fee and the weight."

"You can speak with your father? From here?" Ogedai asks, having stopped in his meal and looking at Tony intently now.

Tony stops in his own meal, cursing internally at the slip of the tongue, not knowing that these people were not capable of that, and now having another thing they want that he has. Tony slowly finishes chewing the food in his mouth and deliberately swallows before continuing, giving him time to think.

"I have the ability to link two mirrors together, with a set of spells I learned from a powerful witch in my homeland," he explains carefully, trying not to lie while also not telling the whole truth. "It was not easy for me to learn, and took me a long time to become proficient."

Ogedai has leaned back in his own seat, his utensils still in hand and his dark eyes are looking at Tony but he can see that the young man is actually thinking deeply over what he had just admitted. After a long moment of thought Ogedai leans forward and resumes his meal, his expression far more somber and measuring as he looks at Tony now.

"What else are you capable of, with magic?" he asks, his eyes not leaving Tony's face.

"Many things, and I am certain your priests and mages are capable of the same things," he says with a depreciating shake of his head. "But I am young and have only a handful of things I can do well with magic. The other things I do I need a lot of preparation and reference material, of which are back at my home."

"But these communicating mirrors, you can make them here?" Ogedai presses, his expression intent. "A pair to connect to each other, for example?"

"I could," Tony answers carefully, not liking the conversation but seeing no way out of it now. "It would only connect to that one, and if damage occurred to it, they would no longer function. And they would only function during periods in which magic is in control of the world."

"How long does it take you to create a pair?" Ogedai asks, absently putting another piece of meat in his mouth.

"It would depend on the sizes," he answers truthfully. "Also of what they are constructed of. Glass mirrors are relatively easier, as the glass is easy to mark, but fragile. Silver or steel, harder as it is, and is more difficult to get the metal to accept the enchantment and to inscribe the appropriate spells onto the surface."

Ogedai nods slowly before responding, "And what do you have for payment to travel through our lands?"

"I have precious jewels, gold, platinum to trade," he replies with a nod, setting down his own utensils, done with his meal and ready to have this conversation over with soon.

"Those hold worth here," Ogedai admits with a nod. "But you have other things we may wish to have in trade, to allow you safe passage."

Tony reads between the lines easily, knowing that the 'safe passage' is also synonymous with 'free passage' and being allowed to leave uncontested from the palace.

"You said your father would wish to speak with me in regards to the mounts my companions and I ride," Tony says, an easy statement, not a question. "I understand that you have customs you follow, and I will respect your security concerns but I am not a subject of your lands. I will not grovel or kneel, though I will bow with respect to the ruler of the land."

"I will speak with my father this evening," Ogedai says slowly with a nod, setting his own utensils down as well and rising, Tony doing likewise across from him. "I am certain he will wish to see you in the morning, not long after first light, to hear about your mounts and your journey thus far to your homeland."

"I am eager to get home as soon as possible," Tony says with a bow to the older man who nods his head in acknowledgement and turns and leaves him with one of the silver gilded guards who leads him back to where his companions camp amid the palace.

"And that's when I came back here," Tony says, having just finished telling the group what had happened at dinner with Ogedai, sitting on one of the folding stools with Maddie sitting on the ground next to him, leaning against his legs and a ward encircling them in the early gloom of night.

"You gave away that we can create the mirrors," Tim says with a frown from where he sits, condescension in his tone. "Not only that, you revealed that Maddie is mated to you and you have strong feelings for her as well, that means either one of you could be used as a hostage against the other."

Tony glances at Kris, sitting next to Tim, who nods then slaps Tim upside the back of the head none too gently, causing the werewolf to almost fall off of his own folding chair. He glares at Kris only for a moment then averts his eyes in submission as Kris is higher in the Horde hierarchy than him.

"Thank you for the summary," Tony says in an even tone, looking at the others. "But because Maddie was holding back in her fight against the Captain they also think we are less capable than we really are."

"That was holding back?" Tim asks, surprised now.

"Waaay back," Maddie says with a snort and a chuckle.

"Mad could've dropped him in a pair of breaths if she'd wanted to, it was for show," Kris explains in a tone as though speaking to a slow child, Tim bristling but keeping his mouth shut at the rebuke.

"I sense at least three dozen guards around the courtyard, I think most are with bows, most likely with silver tipped arrows," he says, gesturing at the shadows under the eaves around them, the closest forty yards away. "And I scented at least eight shapeshifters as well, whereas before there were none, all wolves."

"Most likely to try and contain us as their archers try to work us over, if they decide to take us," Maddie says, nodding at his laydown of the situation around them.

"At the very least, if they try to take us they will want Anthony alive, to provide them with mirrors," Ming says from her own cross legged seat around the low fire they are seated around. "And if they have any of us to persuade him to cooperate, they may discover other abilities they will force him to use for them."

"Not to mention what y'all could do for them if convinced to fight for them," Tony says with his south Georgian accent, rubbing the back of his neck. "The magic will last the night and drop off mid morning, ten thirty or so, if I'm sensing the ebb and flow correctly."

"Prep for movement, in case the meeting with the Khan goes badly?" Maddie asks, with an arched eyebrow at him from where she leans against his leg, an arm atop his thigh casually.

"That's probably for the best," he says with a nod. "They think know our martial prowess, and they have old beliefs here, their magic will be strong and they won't expect my ward to hold off their priests or spellcasters if they send some to break it down when I'm gone."

"They also won't expect Ming to be much good," Kris adds, pointing at the petite young woman. "They think we're barely controlled monsters, not educated, talented and disciplined. She's the ace in the hole here for us."

"I don't like the idea of you going to a meeting surrounded by potential enemies, sir," Bagira says from where she sits next to Ming on the other side of Maddie from Tony.

"They won't let any of you come with me, you're too dangerous," he says with a frown and shake of his head. "And they will have me disarm and searched so I don't bring weapons into sight of the Khan."

"So you'll be defenseless when you meet him, and he has dozens of guards with him… not a good plan," Maddie says with a frown.

"Not defenseless, and not weaponless, either," he says with a shake of his head. "I have a few tricks I picked up on the mountain that will give me an edge or two, and I'm practically a black belt in Kung Fu thanks to the Xiangs and my practical experiences. I'll leave DrageBein and my other gear with you, and what I know will be plenty enough to let me get another weapon from somewhere if push comes to shove."

"They'll have archers surrounding him," Kris points out with a nod of his head. "Mongols are known for great mastery of the bow, and we all know how good you are with one. A bow and a quiver and you'll be fine until we crash the party with Trixie and the others, we'll snatch and grab, then outrun their flock of Mongolian War Eagles."

"That's not reassuring," Maddie says with a warning glance at Kris, who shrugs.

"Ming, focus on something to let you guys escape with flair if I signal, you'll feel it in the magic if I do," he says with a firm look at the older woman, a part of him skeptical but mostly remembering his father's advice 'When in charge, take charge' and acting accordingly. "Then projectile magic for the ride so we can keep them off our backs while we try to get out of range. And anything you can do to increase our mounts endurance if you can. For priority, endurance over offense, With me on Trixie and DrageBien in hand, I think I can keep us covered if we can just outlast them."

"Yes, sir," Ming says with a nod at his intent and priorities.

"Everyone else prep for melee, and make sure the bows are freshly strung and accurate before I leave, and we'll go from there. Remember, the mounts won't take your weight if you shift, so you have to stay in human form," he adds, looking at the rest, all but Bagira with a bow in their kits.

"This is not a good plan," Maddie comments with a smirk and shake of her head, looking at him. "But then it seems like you and Rick can't ever have an easy plan."

"The only easy day was yesterday," he says with his own smile and a laugh of his own, quoting the Khan of Texas and everyone in the circle except Tim laugh at the comment, having heard it many times in a multitude of shitty situations.

Richard stands in the theatre in the Bastion with the other Alphas of the Horde, going over the updated intelligence report from Atlanta, reviewing what they know and suspect of the attack by Roland on "someone" who has Claimed land there when the horn sounds the approach of riders to the main gate. All the shapeshifters halt in their discussion as the last note sounds, the pitch and tone of it combined with the five notes before it making it a specific call, all stiffening in response. Richard lowers his arms from where they had been crossed over his chest, one gesturing as he talked and stands easy as he looks in the direction of the gate but unable to see it from this position.

"Full Lockdown, everyone in the Bastion by sundown and a hundred fighters on guard duty of dependents, everyone else prepare for war," he says to no one in particular, but the Alphas turning and starting to move and issue orders to their Betas and other subordinates as the Khan steps away and strides to where the front gate is.

He exits the open aired theatre that is a larger version of Shakespeare's The Globe with more seating and as he exits he can now see the front gate which is opening and he recognizes the dozen riders entering the Bastion. He grits his teeth and fights not to snarl or growl as he strides purposefully in that direction, raising his right hand, dark metal from below the elbow to fingertips, and his curved sword, Krigsherre, spinning through the air and landing comfortably into his palm as though it were flesh and blood instead of metal and magic. The large warhorses with Viking warriors upon them rein in and halt inside the gate, fifty yards distant and begin to dismount, Richard fighting his instincts to sprint to the cluster and instead focusing on the leader of the NeoVikings entering his home and stronghold.

"Greetings, Richard TigerEye," Odin says as he approaches, long bladed spear in hand and scale armor on over a long green flannel shirt and jeans on his legs with steel shinguards, greaves over top of them.

"What is _he_ doing free?" Richard asks, his words straining the definition of cordial, the underlying growl beneath it pushing it over the edge.

His words are aimed at the one eyed Odin, but his gaze is locked on the blond haired god in human flesh behind him, Baldur, once King Ragnar and ruler of the Norse territories who sacrificed and betrayed Richard's family to obtain the dark knowledge needed to allow the human king to ascend to semi-godhood. Richard had defeated him in battle but Odin had intervened and forbid that he kill him, stating that Ragnarok would result should he do so. Richard had acceded only because Odin had promised punishment for the wrongs committed against him, his family and the Horde, but now seeing this son of Odin free is straining his control.

" **He is needed in the battle to come** ," Odin says, his words echoing throughout the Bastion, heavy with magic and making Richard's gaze snap to him instead of the source of his anger.

Richard takes a deep breath to control his own anger and pushes it aside, the soldier in him and the leader stepping on it hard and taking control of his reactions.

"Who? And where?" he asks, his own tone hard but not possessing of Odin's power.

"I have maps and reports," Odin says, gesturing to the side where Thor is in his usual blue leather vest and jeans leading other NeoViking warriors in mixed armor and equipment to the theatre.

Richard doesn't hesitate but follows where Thor has already headed and has a dozen yard lead, not glancing at Odin as he speaks.

"I presume the invaders are massing from the South and West?" he asks, the most likely avenues of attack to their territory.

Odin blinks his one eye and glances at the reborn Baldur at his side, then back at Richard for a moment as they walk side by side to the theatre behind Thor and the others.

"That is correct. How did you know?" Odin asks, his ravens having only discovered the information the day before and knowing Richard does not have the magical sight he does.

"Operations are driven by Intelligence," he says, quoting a military axiom from throughout history. "I have sources gathering information along all of our borders and beyond. Roland is having a pissing match in the East, trying to secure Georgia, and took a shot to the nuts for his trouble. He won't be a huge issue for a few months at the least, and even then it's likely to be probes and disruption, he's focused on Atlanta like a pig punched in the nose for reasons I can't discuss."

"Cannot? Or will not?" Odin asks, looking at him sidelong as they walk.

"Take your pick and it matters not, I will not speak on it," Richard says as he pauses in step to meet the All-Father's gaze with his own. "Regardless of what others believe, you are not my god, Odin. You know this and cannot compel me as you do those of your pantheon or of your beliefs."

Odin snorts with a smirk, "As you often remind me and my followers."

"As long as we understand each other," he says with a firm nod of his own. "Let me see what you have, and then we'll see how we respond. The Azteka have been probing past El Paso for some time and a push on our borders was inevitable."

"They took a small town southwest of the city," Odin says as they walk into the theatre. "They didn't come from the west directly, but are hugging the coast and doing a combination of movements forward and then doing amphibious assaults around from the eastern flanks on the coast to get behind the lines."

"Sounds like they're pulling a Patton from World War Two during his Sicily invasion," he muses aloud, Odin only glancing at him, largely unfamiliar with modern military history, but the technique used even in his days with Viking Raiders and longboats. "Have the official government representatives been notified?" Richard asks as he arrives on the stage where Thor is finishing directing where maps are being laid on the table that the Council of Alphas had been speaking over a few minutes ago.

"The Texas Rangers know, and they are trying to get a response mobilized, here is what they think will be available in the next day or so," Thor says, sliding a short sheaf of papers to Richard, who scans the papers quickly.

"This is a very hopeful analysis," Richard says with a shake of his head, tossing the report onto the large table that Thor and his two attendants have spread out a very large map of not just the city but the state as well.

"Before I can plan, I have to know," Richard says, turning to look fully at Odin. "How do you plan to rule the land you have Claimed? And those I have claimed, and those of allies?"

"As I do now," Odin responds easily. "We value freedom, minimal government, sparse taxes. Sacrifices are welcome but not required for everyday living. If they do not worship, so be it, that is their choice, and they will not receive individual blessings. But so long as they pay their taxes, they will benefit from my protection within my lands, as they are _**my**_ lands."

"I suppose that is as fair a statement of intent as I will ever get," Richard says with a frown.

"Why is he your counsel for war, father?" Balder, once Ragnar, asks from his place a few yards away, wearing scale armor over his chest but his arms bare and only a leather skirt over his upper legs, no weapons on his belt. The reborn god of the sun has golden blond hair and tanned skin with a perfect complexion and handsome features, though Richard recognizes underneath it a cast that originated from the once dark haired Ragnar.

"He helped in the taking of New Orleans and his forces are formidable, but not nearly as numerous as our own warriors," Baldur points out, waving at the Bastion around them. "He has but a couple thousand, including the non-fighting families and family members, we can field ten thousand in less than a week within fifty miles of the city."

"You haven't told him?" Richard asks Odin with a tilt of his head, eyebrow raised.

"I knew you would enjoy revealing the truth to him, and I believed you deserved to be the one to tell him, since his presence offends you," Odin says with a shrug and frown of his own.

"Tell me what, father?" Baldur asks, still not addressing Richard and having barely looked at him since they arrived, his disposition haughty.

" **I am Tyr, master of war, reborn upon the realm of Midgard** ," Richard says, magic dripping from his words and causing those nearby to flinch in response.

"This cannot be…" Baldur says with a shake of his head as he now stares at Richard, disbelieving.

"And yet it is…" Richard says with a snarl at the taller demi-god. "Your warriors pray to me before battle for the strength and courage of the tiger, as well as the strategies to win."

"If he is Tyr, then you can command him, father, as you compelled me to agree to cooperate," Baldur says, turning to Odin with a light in his eye, as though revealing a great weakness.

"I cannot," Odin says with a shake of his head, waving at Richard. "The spirit of battle and strife is older than even I, and I cannot compel a force that is my elder, even if its chosen vessel is so young."

"How…" Balder says with a shocked expression, as though slapped at having been told that the All-Father is not in face all powerful.

"Long before the dawn of man, strife was already a major component of life," Richard says firmly to all those within earshot, recalling a lesson on war when he was in the Rangers. "Wherever a creature shared a piece of land with another, it was just a matter of time until a struggle for resources would ensue. War was always here, before man was, war waited for him, the ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. Man, however, has showcased a perverse fascination with violence. Man and civilization brought forth more innovative ways of taking human life than any other function needed for survival. There are more ways of killing a man than there are ways of making bread or making love. While the latter two are quite limited in scale, man went beyond imagination with his capacity to destroy life with one push of a button before the shift in his invention of the Nuclear bomb."

"War was always here," Thor says from his own place next to the maps, his own arms crossed as he looks at Baldur under his own dirty blond brow. "Just as Richard was here before we manifested, already strong and leading his people in battles against great foes. It is symbolic, in that war and strife existed in nature among the creatures of the land long before we ever came along to be worshiped by man."

"But I am no avatar, nor am I a god, not in the sense that Odin and Thor are," Richard says with a wave at the two indicated embodied deities. "I am still a man, I can die and I am not immortal, though I do possess great magic potential. But I can hear them pray to me before battle if I focus, just as I presume you can hear them…"

He glances at Odin and Thor who nod assent to his statement, Odin speaking to it.

"They often pray for my wisdom or insight, and Thor for fair winds, fair weather and strength over injustice and in battle," Odin says with a nod.

"That is why I do not approve of him being here," Richard says with a scowl at Baldur. "If he fights, he may draw worshipers, and that will empower him. He still has to pay for his crimes."

"I have spent the time since our last meeting in the abyss, TigerEye," Baldur says, his tone of anger reminding him of Ragnar. "Nothing but darkness and nothingness, no way to count the time, for time untold I floated in that void, Richard Michaels… I have suffered."

"You should count yourself fortunate that your father protects you, because if he did not I would give you such a treatment to have you _yearn_ for a return to the sweet torture of nothingness within the abyss," Richard says with a low growl, his eyes shifting to a bright orange color as he takes a step closer to Baldur.

"Let us focus on the task at hand, at the potential battle ahead," Odin says firmly, stepping between the two bristling men.

"The battle will not be joined for some days," Richard says confidently. "My scouts will go out and in no more than a day I will know where our enemy is operating out of and where he plans to attack next. When I know that I will put my forces in place to bring him to the battlefield of our choosing to make use of our strengths and to dull their own."

"You have not even seen their order of battle, their composition and numbers," Baldur says with a frown and wave to the west. "How can you make such predictions with no information?"

Richard snorts and chuckles, looking to the side where William and Hermano stand waiting, both chuckling as well.

"These are the senior members of my elite, the Agogites," he says with a gesture at the were-leopards. "I know what they are capable of, and in a few days' time you will as well."

Maddie is sitting cross legged with the others in the pre-dawn light, the shapeshifters wearing loosely stitched leather, their vests and gear, bows laid before them as they all silently meditate. They had risen an hour ago and put things in order, Tony still sleeping as he had prepped a blood ward the night before and is waiting until his meeting to seal it, then Ming healing him and resting before the potential conflict today. The shapeshifters had packed their mounts and then assumed a circle around Tony in the positions they hold now, each practicing their own internal meditation that allows them to keep their inner beast under control.

As the sky lightens in the distance, the clear dark sky lightening and the stars disappearing from view they all tense slightly as they sense the changing of the guards around the clearing. The guards come and they can hear murmuring as they give their reports from the night, a pause as both shifts wait together, then an order is given and the night shift leaves. Maddie logs that information away for later, that they had been ready to attack if they'd shown weakness at the time just before dawn, the classic time to attack throughout history as the weak time of an opponent in camp. As they complete the change of the guard, the thin high clouds beginning to gain purple and golden colors, a small group approaches the circle of shapeshifters.

Maddie is now watching as a trio of women approach them, each in their early twenties or late teens, and each dressed in the fashion of Mongol warriors, just as Ogedai had been the day before in leather and fur, their upper arms bare and long, curved swords on their sides. She rises to her feet and gives a hand signal to Kris to watch her back but to stay on the perimeter as she strides to meet the group a couple dozen yards from the others, out of easy hearing range and hoping to allow Tony a few more minutes of undisturbed rest. She halts and looks appraisingly over the women as they stop a few yards away, nodding her head as she continues to study them, surprised when they bow to her respectfully.

"I am Soufe," the woman in the center says, and Maddie is honest enough to admit that the woman is absolutely beautiful with black hair and dark brown eyes that have an exotic epicanthic fold and has a number of light scars along her arms that are visible.

"I am Madelyn Michaels," Maddie replies to the greeting and the three women rise and the center one steps forward, indicating the others are her guards or handmaidens or some such.

"I heard of your bout yesterday with Captain Mogo," Soufe says with a tilt of her head. "And I am told you are second in command of your group."

"I am," Maddie says with a nod of agreement when the woman pauses, unsure where this is going.

"I have heard tales of America, from before the Shift," she continues, her voice turning eager. "Is it true, what they say? That all men and women are free to choose their own paths? That any can rise to greatness there, if they are willing to work for it?"

Maddie takes a breath and collects her thoughts before speaking carefully through the translation charm on her neck, "We are a country of laws, in the main, and we follow them. We have people we choose, as a group, to manage the law and enforcement of those laws. But if you do not infringe on the freedoms of others you are free to do as you wish, to pursue your interests as you see fit. But we have other organizations within our country that are more similar to your empire. In the area I live in, and in the organization I am a part of which is a collection of shapeshifters, we have additional rules placed upon us and our leader chose himself, but I am allowed to choose my own destiny, if that is what you are asking. I chose to be a warrior, it was not thrust upon me."

"I am the Khan's fourth daughter," Soufe says with a frown of her own, glancing back at the main palace. "I will not inherit, and at best I may be married to a senior minister or perhaps a competitive tribe within the Empire to ensure loyalty. My father has allowed me to learn to fight and ride as a warrior, only because I am not yet promised, but once I am I will be brought to court and my time riding the skies will be at an end. I have no such hope for advancement as you do in your land."

Maddie hears the sadness in the woman's voice and though the reasonable response would be silence, during this journey she is Rick's daughter, Agogite of the Horde, and cannot act otherwise.

"Can you leave?" Maddie asks, tilting her head at her in question, and the woman turns to look at her with surprise. "If you are fourth, you likely have others younger and older, and if you are not married yet the Khan is unlikely to be in a hurry to marry you off. One less daughter to provide a dowry and arrange a big wedding may be welcome if you were to leave with us, when we go."

"I…" Soufe says with blinking eyes, taken off guard.

"If you choose to come, we would train you, if you wished," Maddie continues. "What was seen yesterday was but a small sample of what we are capable of, and my mate, Tony, who leads us is a human, and is a match or more for most of those in our party. The journey would not be a safe one, though, I warn you. It will have peril and danger, and I will not guarantee you will survive it. Though if you should, I daresay that your children and grandchildren will likely recount your tales around the campfire with respect and honor."

Soufe stares at her for a long moment, glancing to her right at another of the women who looks to be of the same age or a little older though slightly taller and with a scar bisecting her left eyebrow. The other woman's eyebrows are raised not in surprise but in another expression, as though to prod the young woman on, and she nods to Soufe.

"I am honored with your offer," Soufe says with a bow, the other two doing the same. "I will speak with my father and look forward to speaking with you again, Madelyn Michaels."

"We do not stand on formalities, in my land," Maddie says with a bow of her own. "You may call me Maddie."

"Thank you, Maddie," she repeats with a nod of her own, then she and the other two leave the clearing, the young woman all but running in excitement.

Maddie returns to the circle, and as she starts to lower herself she hears Tony rise from where he had lain in the center, rolling off of the sleeping pad with a chuckle.

"Looks like me and dad aren't the only ones who seem to attract strays," he says softly so only those around him can hear.

Maddie frowns as she hears Kris and Ming snort and chuckle low at the joke and she shakes her head primly with her chin held high in response.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I seem to have attracted a princess, not a stray," she says with a haughty tone. "If that's what's flocking to me, then _ob_ -viously I am far more than a mere stray."

"Which is one of the many reasons I love you," he says as he kneels next to her and leans over to plant a kiss on her head.

She turns and he bends down to place a kiss on her lips as she smiles up at him in reply.

Richard enters his cabin with an internal sigh of relief, the last hours of discussing what the Vikings can bring to the table in terms of numbers and types of fighters as well as where he wants them to assemble having occupied his time, but dealing with Baldur adding additional stress. He smiles at Jocelyn and Tasha at the dining room table, Tasha quickly identifying items that the young girl is pointing at on a large complicated picture that is absolutely clogged with items horded into a picture of a treasure room. Tasha has focused on him when he enters, though, her gaze intense as she takes in his scent and his general demeanor in a moment of study.

"Who do I need to kill?" she asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

"No one," he assures her with a frown. "Someone I thought would be in prison is on parole and it's riding on me."

Tasha tilts her head in thought, "The Vikings came, with Odin and Thor, right?"

"Right," he says with a nod as he leans down and gives Jocelyn a quick hug before going to the fridge to pull out a beer.

"They brought the other with them, the one who helped the one who survived Tony's duel, the dark one that helped him become sun kissed, who kidnapped and hurt Maddie," she says, motioning her hands as she works out the logic, the names still a bit fuzzy.

"Baldur," Richard says with a nod, still frowning as he tosses the bottle cap into the trash. "He says the Norns predicted he will be needed in a battle we will be fighting very soon. The Mexica Empire is pushing up and trying to take southern Texas."

"There's going to be a war?" Jocelyn asks, her eyes lighting up in excitement. "Can I come this time?"

"No, you can't come," Richard says with a firm finger at the almost teenager. "You're not nearly as good fighting or using magic as you think you are. You have some years yet until you'll be ready."

"I will watch over him, cub," Tasha says, leaning down and ruffling the girl's multi-colored hair, then kissing the top of her head.

"We'll see about that…" Richard says with an uneasy expression. "You're not in top form yet, I'm not sure you're up leading troops in battle."

"I never will be if I am here all the time and not out in the world," she says with raised eyebrows of her own. "I am remembering more, from the time before the pain. And when I do things I remember more."

Richard frowns and looks down at the bottle in his hand, "And your time is up. Challengers are free step up now."

"Remind me, cub, was he always this much of a worrier?" Tasha asks as she turns and looks at Jocelyn with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, but he never said it out loud, usually," she says simply, pulling out another picture. "He usually just gave advice and watched, never really said anything."

"And apparently I'm transparent," Richard says with a smirk at the young girl.

"We still love you, Rick," Jocelyn says with a giggle and finishes spreading out the picture on the table. "When can I start visiting Aunt A again? I heard she kicked ass at the duel."

"Language," Richard and Tasha say simultaneously with a brief shared smile.

"The threat is from well outside the area I control and the city is generally safe for now," Richard says with a shrug. "As long as you don't go alone, you can visit her."

"Does Max count?" she asks, looking up at him intently. "And what about Ashley?"

"An adult, though I'm sure Max would love to get out of the walls and go on a trip with you," Richard says with a shrug then taking a pull of his beer.

"Any word on Maddie and Tony?" Tasha asks, knowing that part of his head is tracking where his children, natural and adopted, are on the other side of the planet.

"Last we heard, they cleared Taiwan and headed north, into Mongolian territory, Autumn talked with them and called over and gave William an update, since I was in that wargaming session," he says with a frown.

"So they're okay?" Jocelyn asks with a worried frown.

"For values of okay," Richard says with a shrug. "Tony is meeting with the Khan of the Mongolian Empire, so, yeah, I'm sure that will go over with no problems."

Tony stands in a courtyard in front of the grand palace of Karakorum, the stone covered area of polished marble in the nearly clear day as sunshine covers the dark brown squares with veins of white in them. The courtyard is fifty yards on a side with squares five yards wide and deep with flowers and trees, koi ponds and other decorations scattered artfully around, a reflection of the Chinese influence on the Empire. But central to the open space is what has drawn Tony's attention, a tree thirty yards high sculpted entirely of silver, five streams of liquid falling from bare silver branches equidistant around the trunk but at different distances from the center, leaves upon the solid silver branches of hammered copper, silver and gold. His slow walk around it has allowed him to assess there are two types of grape wines, a rice wine, a dark heavy alcohol he doesn't know the name of and mead falling into grates carved into the stone floor.

Tony wears his green and brown silk and leather traveling gear rather than the dark armor that Maddie and the others had brought with them, wishing not to be viewed as a combatant if possible for this meeting. He hears the approaching group long before the guards scattered around the courtyard, these guards all bearing the silver highlights that Ogedai's had the day before, and when he notes that they hear the Khan and his guards approach he reacts as well, turning to the large hall the sound comes from. He watches as the Khan approaches, Ogedai at his side with another young man older than Ogedai that Tony would guess is an older brother, along with four more guards, these with gold gilding on their armor.

The Khan is a wide bodied man in his late forties by appearance, his hair thick down past his shoulders on the sides of his head and the top shaved around the large reversed teardrop style of the Khans in the center. The Khan wears gold and black silk robes of Chinese style, though the younger men wear the leather armor of their forbearers, all three with curved swords and daggers on their hips. As they approach Tony turns to face them and bows low as the Khan of the Mongol Empire slows his stride and stops a half dozen yards away.

"So you are the American who has wandered into my lands?" the Khan says in Chinese, his words slow and measured as he studies Tony beneath lowered brows, his round face not projecting a sense of softness but of strength beneath it, carrying his three hundred pounds or more as though it were nothing.

"Not all those who wander are lost, Khan," Tony replies without having to use Babylon's Blessing to communicate, not rising from his bow, his eyes unfocused and taking in his entire environment.

"Wise words… rise," Subedai Khan says as he walks towards the tree, holding a hand out and a servant placing a silver goblet in it, others drifting forward to give Ogedai, the other man and Tony one as well. "Drink with us. My son Ogedai you have met, this is Kublai, my first son, who will inherit one day."

The Khan fills his cup with the dark liquor, the sons taking falling wine in their cups and Tony allows his own cup to fill with the falling mead.

"Your mounts are impressive," the Khan says with a searching gaze at Tony after he takes a drink of his cup, a thoughtful frown on his face. "The colored ones less so, compared to our own War Eagles or the dragon you rode in on. You say it is one of a kind? There are no others that you know of?"

"She is unique, as far as I know, Khan," Tony admits with a nod, having taken single small sip of his mead, using his translating charm to speak in the Mongolian tongue. "She cannot breed with other species, as far as I know, and the ability to create her is a unique specialized ability manifested by a single witch in my homeland. She cannot be replicated in any other fashion."

"You speak as though you are an expert of such things," Ogedai says with a raised eyebrow, raising his cup to take another drink of the red wine in his cup as they walk slowly through the courtyard, following the meandering Khan.

"I am not, but I spoke with the witch responsible for the wyvern's transformation last night," Tony says, having already revealed the mirror's abilities and using it to his advantage. "She is certain that no other magic user could mimic what she did with any accuracy."

"You spoke with this witch, across thousands of miles of countryside and oceans?" the Khan asks, looking sideways at Tony with a focused expression.

"I did, as though we were looking at each other through a single pane of glass," he says, nodding his head and not making eye contact.

"My son says you have gold and riches, but they are nothing compared to the ability to communicate over such vast distances," Subedai says as he stops and turns to Tony fully. "My armies have suffered in the far north and west due to the Rus' ability to coordinate over great distances. This capability by my own people would neutralize this advantage and likely allow us to finally move further west, towards Europe and its jewel, Rome."

"I wish simply to continue my journey home, great Khan," Tony says, bowing again, tense as to what may come next.

"And so you shall, for a price," Subedai Khan says with a firm nod, taking a deep quaff of his cup then speaking in a tone that demands obedience. "You will show my mages and priests how you craft these speaking mirrors, and in recompense you will be free to continue your journey, with an escort of my finest warriors to the borders of my land, and with riches to accompany you on your way."

Tony takes a deep breath and bows once again, his senses stretched and noting the location of all the guards who have tensed in response to a possible confrontation, of which they are not wrong.

"With respect, Khan, I cannot teach the secret of the mirrors to your people, it is not my secret to tell, but that of another, and I may not share it," he says simply, his eyes on the ground and focused on nothing and everything at once.

"I command that you will," the Khan says with a glower at Tony, and the guards around them tense, though Tony notes with satisfaction that none have arrows on strings and the Khan's words do not resonate with magic. "If you do not, your companions will die, your woman among them."

Tony rises from his bow and now looks the Khan firmly in the eye, though his awareness of his surrounding does not falter as he does.

"My companions and I have traveled in your lands in good faith, and I am willing to trade five pairs of mirrors to you, which I will create in the next magic wave," he says in a hard tone of his own, to which the Khan stiffens in response, unused to being addressed as such. "In recompense you will provide escort for my group to the edge of your borders, and allow your daughter, Soufe, the choice to leave with us if she should choose so. If you attempt to force us in any way or to alter this trade, I swear that you will regret the decision until your deathbed."

Subedai scowls at Tony, "How dare you threaten me! In my own home! I will have you strung up –"

Before he can continue his threat Tony has already begun moving, his cup tossed so the liquid within splashes across the Khan's face in an arc. He darts forward with focused senses and pulls the dagger from Kublai's sheath as the young man goes for his sword, and grabs the drawn dagger in Ogedai's grip. A pair of quick strikes and now Tony has a dagger in each hand held at the narrow line of exposed flesh of the two sons of the Khan. The two pause as he draws a narrow line of blood across their necks, freezing in mid motion as they realize how fast he had moved and how close they are to death.

The Khan has stumbled back behind his guards, a dozen of which now hold drawn bows on Tony's form as he holds his position between the two sons with a blank expression.

" **My name is Anthony Hessberg, son of Richard Michaels, a First among animal touched and first of his line** ," Tony says firmly as he stands with blades poised to strike, his tone reverberating with magic. " **I swear that if you honor my bargain no malice will come to you from me or my people, and we will be on our way. Cross us, and your descendants will curse the day you chose to clash with us**."

Subedai Khan wipes the last of the liquor from his face, looking at the position of his sons, the sudden shaking of his guards as they fight the sudden terror inspired by the power shown by the man who holds them hostage.

"What size and type of mirrors?" he asks after a long pause of ten seconds or so, trying regain some semblance of control, though knowing within that he cannot condemn his first born son to death in such an ignoble way.

"You may determine size and composition," Tony says evenly, calmly, as though there were not two dozen men on the verge of violence around him. "This will provide you the ability to counter your enemies' advantage, and if your spellcasters are clever enough, perhaps they can solve the riddle of the mirrors before they expire from use. But I will not gift you the secret of their construction. I swore an oath to the one who bestowed it to me, and I will not violate that oath."

Tony intentionally worded it that way, and spoke such an oath the night before to Aunt A, so that he would be telling the truth, and the Khan jumps on the loophole allowed him.

"I would not presume to have you violate an oath so sworn," Subedai says after a moment and nodding. "I agree to your terms, and swear to my ancestors that I, and my people, will honor them."

"Then I am satisfied," Tony says with a nod, slowly removing the blades from the two men's necks and taking a step back from them, then holding the daggers out to them hilt first with a bow.

The two men hesitate, glancing at each other for a moment, then taking the weapons back cautiously. As they sheath their weapons, Ogedai clears his throat and adjusts his belt.

"I have never seen a man move so fast," he comments, glancing at his older brother and his father.

"My father is animal touched, he commands thousands of others similar to him and is possibly the greatest warrior in my homeland," Tony says with a small smile. "He and his warriors trained me to fight. As such, I am unusual among human fighters."

The magic crashes as he finishes speaking and everyone pauses as they readjust to the new world, the guards shifting from bows to pistols ready on their hips as they eye Tony suspiciously after his previous actions.

"So, great Khan, what size and types of communications mirrors would you like in trade?" Tony asks with a bow as they begin negotiations, the two sons of the Khan taking their leave as they talk.

Maddie watches Tony enter the landing courtyard with a pensive expression that she tries to hide as he walks forward, a half dozen guards following him with arrows on strings.

"Everything go okay?" she asks, the entire party with their own bows in hand and ready to react if necessary.

"I had to be impressive during my negotiation with the Khan," he says with a tight smile in English, not using his translation charm. "The guards are nervous as a result. We have the Khan's oath that we will have safe travel. He spoke in front of his sons and two dozen witnesses on the honor of his ancestors."

Ming relaxes slightly, as do the others, and Maddie forces herself to ease up as well, though she still eyes the guards warily.

"We have quarters ready for us, and I will make communication mirrors during the next magic wave," he says to the group, waving at their mounts, and they start to move towards them to pull their gear and the remove their harnesses.

When they have put their unharnessed mounts into a large stable for similar creatures and have settled into their quarters, a large pair of rooms for Maddie and Tony and for each of the rest of the group, Tony gathers them in his room to give them the details of the meeting.

"Questions?" he asks when he is finished, and though expecting some remarks from Tim, the young man only frowns and keeps his peace, Kris glancing at him and none of the others with anything.

"Well, as far as I can tell, it feels like we'll have at least another six hours or more of tech, so let's get some rest," he says, and the others leave to go to their own rooms.

Maddie waits until they are alone and they door is closed and she gives him an expectant look. He doesn't say anything but pulls her into a tight embrace and she can feel him shake slightly as he holds her, and she holds him gently in response.

"Are you okay?" she asks, softly, aware of guards down the halls and on the roof, but humans and not shapeshifters.

"I threatened to kill a man's sons as he looked on," he says with a deep, shuddering breath. "God in heaven… I am glad he didn't challenge me when I implied that I'd do it."

She lifts her head from his chest and turns his head to where she can look him in the eyes and fixes him with her own stare, smiling as she does.

"I promise not to tell anyone it was a bluff," she says, leaning up and kissing him on his scarred jawline.

"Thank you," he says, breathing out quietly and with it a great deal of tension.

"We're not monsters… I love you for who you are," she says gently, kissing him again, which leads to other things as they have a room alone.

Autumn sits in the front room of her store with no little bit of consternation, as she has been open for three hours and no one has visited her shop, not her regulars nor the two businesses in the neighborhood who had ordered supplies that arrived yesterday and are ready for pickup. She knew there would be backlash from her duel on the field in Town's Square, she had just hoped it wouldn't be so… well, so total, she feels abandoned. She lifts her head as Atticus enters the front door, his children behind him in matching polo shirts that sport the shop's logo and title.

"I think it might be best if you go home, Atticus, there's nothing to do here, it seems," she says, waving to the seemingly abandoned shop.

"Nonsense," he says with the Irish brough that reminds her of her first Celtic mentor, Jocelyn and Ashley following him through the door. "I'll stay 'ere and mind 'te store, ye and 'te young ones kin take 'tose orders to 'ter owners, it'll keep 'tem busy and help ye mind the business as well."

Jocelyn skips into the shop wearing a light brown leather vest, pink t-shirt underneath and jeans over bare feet, her chestnut hair in finger thick braids, a dozen of which are colored a deep blue. Behind her Ashley enters the store with the hood of her sweatshirt up over her short black hair and dark eyes, her backpack bulging underneath it on her back as she looks around, the baggy shirt and the items in her bag a safety net for her, still viewing things from the perspective of a street urchin. Autumn frowns but nods, going out and doing business not a bad plan, as at least if she shows up on the front door with the orders they are unlikely to be turned away, especially as she has paperwork to back up the orders. So with the help of Jocelyn and Ashley, she manages to get the wagon packed and they ride out from the shop with Jocelyn sitting atop the piled supplies in the back and Ashley beside her as they go to deliver the orders.

"Aunt A, is something wrong?" Jocelyn asks from behind and above her, her heels kicking back and forth off of the trunk she is sitting on. "You seem sad."

"Just a lot of grown up stuff going on, is all," she says with a sigh, that simple statement containing mountains.

"You mean those stupid Council people that tried to take you away?" Jocelyn asks, her tone angry now. "I'm glad you beat them up. They shouldn't be allowed to just go around and bully people like that. It's not fair."

Autumn looks over her shoulder in surprise while careful to keep the horse trotting down the right side of the road.

"Who told you about the Council?" she asks, surprised.

"Rick, Tasha and Mischa, of course," Jocelyn says with a wave. "I was finishing up that sweater I'm making for Tony's birthday in the living room while they were talking over the plan for your duel. Oh, I heard you kicked ass, Aunt A, way to go!"

"Language," Autumn says automatically with a firm tone and a frown, to which Jocelyn goes quiet for a moment. "You really shouldn't worry about duels and fights and such, you need to focus on growing up and learning."

"I know, I know, when I'm old enough I'll have to work enough then," she says in a suffering sing song tone, something both Autumn and Richard has reminded her of constantly. "But I haven't been able to come over and practice those runes and incantations because you've been busy and Rick and Tasha have been under a lot of stress from the Horde. I'm glad I got to come by today. Can we go over what you put on your armor when we get back to the shop?"

"Those are a bit beyond what you should be working on," she says with a shake of her head. "Your grammer and syntax in Gaelic is horrible, and your spelling is far from perfect. When you can speak, read and write it without fail and have it as a comfortable voice in your head, then we can move on to spells. Not before."

"But Aunt A…" Jocelyn whines, leaning back to lie across the top of the large trunk, acting exactly like an eleven year old that doesn't get her way.

"No buts, I only teach one way, the right way," she says with a shake of her head. "Which means a solid foundation before all else. So there is no skipping ahead. Tony didn't get any cheats from me either, he just managed to get the Xiangs to give him some turnkey spells to work around what he figured out on his own from my charms he's seen."

"They won't give me any, either," she says with a pout as she pushes herself up to lean back on her arms. "They said my Cantonese is worse than any _gwai lo_ 's they've heard in years… What's a _gwai lo_?"

"Chinese slang term for 'white devil', a derogatory term for any westerner or anyone not purely descended from the Han, the Chinese or Asiatic," Autumn says in explanation as she reins in the horse and wagon in front of a shop a pair of blocks from her shop. "Okay, Ashley, carry the small barrel there, it'll be a bit heavy but it's only half full of specialized salt mix, just don't use your back, lift with your legs. Jocelyn, be a dear and pick up that trunk you're lying on, it has some treated leather and cloth bolts in it."

"On it," Jocelyn says, easily shifting the barrel to the edge of the back of the wagon for the other girl to grab and shift carefully onto her shoulder, hopping down and holding the fifty pound trunk over her head easier than a four foot tall pre-adolescent should.

"You just like showing off, don't you?" Autumn says with a wry smile at the young girl, unable to maintain a dour demeanor around the energetic young were-lion.

"What's the point of super-strength if you can't use it?" she says with a shrug as she balances the trunk on her head. "If Spider-man didn't have so many enemies with no morals and if he had been rich like Stark, he would have showed off, too."

"Bless my brother for one thing, you have access aplenty to his comic book collection," she says with a small laugh and a shake of her head as she leads the two girls to the front of the specialty clothing shop, _Welsh Wrappings_.

Autumn enters the front door of the shop and holds open the doors for the two girls behind her who follow her, Ashley slightly awkward with the twenty pounds over a shoulder and Jocelyn practically dancing sideways through the door. The shop is a double wide shop with numerous clothing racks scattered throughout but not bunched together, allowing for an open feeling, not cluttered. The walls don't have garments on racks as the ones along the floor do, but bolts of cloth and other materials, as well as some specialty made cloaks, dresses and shawls. With the tech up the store is illuminated not with contemporary lightbulbs and such, but instead with three large chandeliers hanging from the high, twenty foot ceiling, all three made of horseshoes welded together in spiraling designs seven feet across. The three chandeliers have about a hundred small candle lightbulbs in them, casting a warm glow across the room, tubes of glass running along the underside of them that would light with charged air as feylanterns during the magic waves for light instead but giving a similar effect.

Autumn smiles as a woman around her own age comes from further back in the store, though nearly rail thin and with fiery red hair over a heart shaped face and wearing a simple green summer dress. She pauses only slightly in surprise to see who her visitors are but her face keeps her smile in place as she approaches them and Autumn keeps her own pleasant smile in place as well.

"Bright day, Caroline," Autumn says with a nod of her head. "Your order came in and I figured we'd bring it by, so you wouldn't have to make the trip."

"That's very kind of you," she says with a nod of her own, then pauses, shakes her head and steps up to give Autumn a quick hug in greeting, surprising the other woman slightly. "I'm actually glad you stopped by. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

"Certainly," Autumn says with a nod of her own, trying to think of what the conversation will be about and partially dreading it. "Is Nick in the back?"

"He's in the stockroom," Caroline says with a nod, looking at Jocelyn. "Girls, you remember Nick, don't you? Take those in the back and see if you can weasel a few pastries from him, I think his mother packed his lunch and she usually gives him more than is good for him."

"On it," Jocelyn says with a grin and waves Ashley to follow her and the two hurry to the back of the store.

"Expanding your work force?" Caroline says with a smile at Autumn.

"Kids need chores, it helps them learn responsibility as they grow up," Autumn says with a shrug. "When they stay with Rich at the Bastion they help tend the horses and the Ptactors. He doesn't let them help with security and whatnot, but they do chores just like everyone else."

Caroline nods, her expression pensive as she leads Autumn to a short table and a pair of chairs and couch towards the back where she usually talks with clients about specialty orders and such. They sit and Caroline takes a deep breath that Autumn surmises is for courage and she braces herself for the loss of a customer.

"I, well, actually, we…" she starts, then pauses and shakes her head with a sigh and a frown. "This is just surreal, I just can't believe it all…"

"Caroline, it's me, Autumn," she says as the other woman again tries to organize her thoughts. "I'm the same person who helped you organize your _Gwyl Badric_ a few months back with your family and friends, the same one who celebrated _Gwly Giric_ with you just a few weeks ago at your pasture outside of town. Please don't treat me any different, I'm really not."

"But, you _are_ ," Caroline says with emphasis, shaking her head. "I, we, all thought you were like us, just normal witches and such, not… not a High Priestess and Brigid's chosen."

"I'm nothing so lofty," Autumn says in self depreciation, shaking her head.

"Autumn, we saw what you did," she says with a shake of her head. "I mean, that armor was gorgeous! Just beautiful and the glow from it was just… I mean, to see our runes adorning it, not the Norse or Germanic, not the Arabians or the Yiddish, but _our_ runes…"

She trails off, and Autumn starts to realize what she must have looked like, what she must have meant to those of the city who don't practice the major faiths, but are of smaller beliefs whose power appeared to be waning in the area and in the world. Instead of those faiths everyone saw as powerful being showcased, it was instead a little known and often dismissed pantheon that championed instead.

"Well, it only made sense to me then, as it does now," Autumn says, shrugging. "I am not ashamed of my faith, and when I was challenged, it was only natural to lean on those things that had lent me strength in the past."

"To be honest, we thought you had started to slide from our regional faith," Caroline says with a slightly embarrassed expression. "What with the Arabic staff you carry around."

"It's a tool, nothing more," she says with a glance at the staff leaning next to the chair she sits in across from the other woman. "I received it as a… a gift and it has unique properties that come in handy."

"Well, I'm sorry I didn't come and pick up my order, but we've been having meetings and talking, and trying to figure out what to do next, how to, well, how to approach you," Caroline says, almost apologetically.

"Approach me? About what?" Autumn asks with a furrowed brow.

"About what we do now," she says with a gesture of her open hand to the side. "I mean, we have more that practice the faith than the Rabbis do in their congregation, and no, most of us are not nearly as powerful as yourself or the Rabbis, but we're still more numerous than the Russians in the region, since we encompass beliefs from not just the Isles but also a number of Western European Pantheons under our faith. And you know how different we are from the Eastern European faiths that blended with Asia."

Suddenly it hits Autumn and she blinks and tries not to look like an ox hit with mallet between the eyes, that those of similar faiths to herself are looking to her for leadership. That they now see her as a High Priestess for all of them in the area, to give them guidance and direction as a congregation.

"I see," Autumn says slowly, drawing the words out and glancing at her hands then back up at Caroline who is looking at her expectantly. "Well, to be honest, I haven't given it a lot of thought. I never planned to be a High Priestess, just a normal Kitchen Witch. I'll have to think on it some more, and pray for guidance."

"Oh," Caroline says, somewhat disappointedly. "I, I mean we, we weren't sure what came next, we kind of thought that you had a plan."

"I do, but its more along the lines of a… a concept than a concrete plan," she says, forcing herself to think like her brother and speaking as she knows he would were he in this situation. "I don't know the numbers of what types of faiths are in the area, only the generalities. And I'm only familiar with those that frequent my shop. There are a lot of others in the city that I don't know, and I can't say anything definite without knowing more. And that takes time, I am only human, after all."

"Oh," Caroline says with a nod of understanding, reassured.

"When was the next time your group was going to meet?" Autumn asks, part of her trying to formulate the actual concept she'd lied about having a moment ago.

"There's seven of us, and we're only the representatives of this side of the city, the other parts of town have their own leaders," Caroline says in explanation. "We were going to meet again tonight for dinner."

"Well, now that I know that you are meeting, I'll have to go find out more about the other groups, and your own," Autumn says with a nod, her thoughts falling into somewhat familiar paths. "Let your group know that I would like to speak with them, soon, and I'll let the other groups in the city know as well. I'll meet with each of the groups separately, then we'll have a meeting, similar to the Conclave the other groups in town have amongst themselves."

"Thank you, ma'am," Caroline says with a nod and a sigh of relief.

"It's Autumn," she says with a smile, reaching over and placing a calming hand on the other woman's knee. "Now let's go find my charges before they ruin your stockroom in a sugar high induced frenzy."

Autumn walks back into the her shop with a dozen things on her mind as Jocelyn and Ashley hurry to the back to pull out the books she'd told them to use for reading and practicing their Gaelic. She goes to the main counter where Atticus is sitting and sipping on a cup of tea, another one across from him for her, having made it as he heard them arrive in the back, shapeshifter hearing allowing him to anticipate her. She sits on the high stool and picks up the cup of tea, taking a long breath of it to calm her nerves before taking a sip and setting it down.

"Atticus, could you hand me the phone, I need to call my brother," she says with a sigh and a frown.

Instead of turning around and pulling the long corded phone from the wall, he reaches under the bookshelf behind him and pulls out four thick folders held closed by rubber bands from a low shelf. He sets the folders in front of her and she blinks at them in befuddlement, each a pair of inches thick.

"T'e Khan fig'red ye'd have some questions, so 'e had me keep 'dis for when ye did," Atticus says with a wave at the folders. "Intel 'nd basic background on all t'ose of Pagan belief in the city, broken down by the area 'dey live in. I also 'ave been keeping tabs on the groups, so I ken answer any questions ye 'ave."

"Why do I feel like I've been played," she says with narrowed eyes at the thick folders on the counter, looking at them as though they were a sack of vipers upended on the surface.

"Ye were gonna call him for info on the others in town, now that yer Brigid's High Priestess, right?" Atticus asks with a shrug, needing no answer. "Ye know the Khan, he plans ahead. It's what he does."

"Yes," she agrees with a sigh. "It is what he does," she pulls close a folder and opens it to start reading about the people she is now apparently a religious figure for.

Tony leaves his room with only DrageBien on his left hip in compact form of a wooden knuckle duster in appearance, his kurki on his right thigh. Maddie is beside him with her vest and Norse daggers, her father's knife on her hip and no other weapons, now that they have received the Khan's oath, both wearing comfortably broken-in, loose jeans. As they pass the rooms the rest of their party had stayed in they approach the courtyard leading from the short hall with their rooms, where an open courtyard twenty yards square is open to the sky. The sky is overcast and Tony watches as Kris and Tim spar unarmed in the open area, Ming and Bagira to the side discussing the forms and techniques used by the combatants as they fight, speaking in English, a way for Bagira to learn better fighting techniques as well as practice speaking in the language. Though Kris is easily beating and slapping the werewolf regularly in what would be wounding or crippling blows as they fight, Tony's attention is on the pair of Mongols on the far side of the courtyard opposite them.

"Good morning, Soufe," Maddie says with a smile at the other woman as she and Tony circle around where Kris scolds Tim in their sparring match, giving him rough pointers as the younger man retaliates, the two visiting young women trying not to be distracted by the instruction.

"Good morning, Maddie," the young woman says with a bare nod of her head, the woman who has a scar down her eyebrow at her side. "Master Three Arms has requested your presence in his dojo, if you will permit it."

Maddie glances at Tony who nods, "The priests and mages are gathering the materials I requested and will ask me questions when I complete the enchantments. I am free until the magic returns."

Maddie nods, him having mentioned that the magic will return this evening around dark. They follow Soufe and her guard as they stride through the compound of the Khan's palace, passing elaborate tapestries and fine vases mixed in with fur rugs of both mundane and exotic, magical origin. Both glance at each other after a few minutes of walking, their sense of direction and placement knowing that they are being given an informal tour to let them see the trophies and accomplishments of the Khan and his people, a way of boasting after yesterday's loss of face. The glance communicates they both understand and they say nothing but continue to follow, both categorizing where they are and what they see for an update to the others later should they need a map of the palace.

Tony follows Soufe into a large dojo, the floor hard wood panels raised around a foot deep depression of sand two feet wide along the edges of the room, the center area of two foot by one foot dark wood squares fit irregularly in a practice area of fifteen paces square. On the far side of the room is an alcove built into the wall six feet deep which hang numerous weapons of plain but functional weapons, incense burning and tickling his and Maddie's nostrils. Behind the two burning sticks of incense set in a cup filled with sand sits an elderly man who despite wrinkles and liver spots along his bald scalp and neatly trimmed white goatee they are both certain is not a weak man, judging from his demeanor and the aura of competence that radiates from him.

Soufe and her companion has peeled off to the side and they pass them and halt in the center of the practice floor, both bowing deeply to the elderly man whose narrowed eyes studies both of them as they do. They rise to stand easily and unconcerned before him as he continues to peer at them both, first focusing on Tony, particularly his scarred and colorful face and exposed left hand. When he looks at Maddie she fights not to bristle under the attention, and is only partially successful under his assessing gaze. The old man nods, as though coming to a decision and he rises to his feet and shakes off his robe, revealing that his left arm ends just below the shoulder, and his right hand tossing his silk top to the side as he walks to the open training area to leave his occasionally scarred skin bare, old but firm and combat ready.

"I am Master Three Arms, I train the Khan's sons and court to fight," the old man says, approaching them and when he is close he lashes out unexpectedly at Tony.

Tony leans back slightly and lifts his right leg, blocking the sweeping kick that would have dropped him on his back from the old master. Three Arms nods approval as he simply shifts his own stance and continues his circling of the two with a critical eye.

"You have roots, that is good, your Sefu is not incompetent," he comments, then strikes again, this time at Maddie's back from a yard behind her.

Maddie twists and reaches behind her from her right, deflecting the stiff fingered strike enough that it only grazes her vest along her lower left side as she pirouettes to the side and resumes a centered, easy stance.

"And you can bend with the wind, as necessary," he says with a nod of approval, returning to the front of the dojo and squaring off and looking at the two of them with appraising eyes. "Who is truly the better? The animal, or the man?"

Tony glances at Maddie who takes a deep breath then nods grudgingly before turning and joining Soufe at the entryway of the dojo without a word. Tony turns to Master Three Arms and reaches down to remove his kurki from his thigh as well as DrageBien from his hip, tossing them to Maddie at the entrance. The Master stands still and easy, as does Tony, neither with arms raised or elevated heart rates, both simply watching the other as they stare at everything and nothing at once. Seconds pass by, until a minute has gone, neither one saying anything or moving, Soufe, Maddie and the other young woman unmoving and waiting as well.

Finally the Master moves, shuffling forward in a flash and attacking, off-center for a normal person as he leads with his right arm, but balanced for someone with a missing limb. Tony shifts his footing then raises his arms and deflects the strike from the right arm, the attack faster than a viper and reminding him of trying to not get hit by the Xiang Patriarch. Master Three Arms is fast, nearly as fast as the shapeshifters Tony normally trains with, so he is able, if barely, to avoid the blows from above as well as below, having built more experience during his travels to allow him to counter and dodge adequately.

They look like a pair of near blurs fighting each other, both moving on the very edge of human capability as they each strike out at the other, dodging their opponent's blows and deflecting or blocking strikes as well. Maddie watches with an assessing eye, noting the way Master Three Arms moves and favors his right side in such a way to not set himself off balance, but also using an occasional strike from his stump as a normal person would use an elbow on that side. Tony is not fooled by the attempts, but it was close on the first attack and would likely have deceived one less jaded than him. Soufe simply tries not to stare as Master Three Arms fights with Tony, passing a full minute and through a second to reach three minutes where neither combatant has landed a blow, far longer than she has ever seen the Master lack a strike.

As the third minute enters a fourth the old master spins away from Tony, who moves to the far side of the sparring platform, Tony starting to breathe deeply from the exertion but ready to continue, whereas Three Arms is breathing deep and a film of sweat covers his bare chest. Master Three Hands rises up to bow deeply and formally to Tony, who bows just as deeply in return to the old master, both solemn and serious.

"You have great potential, Master Hessberg, much of it already realized," Three Arms says as he rises from his bow. "Unusual for someone so young. Your patience is to be commended, and your discipline is impressive."

"You flatter me, Master," Tony says in response as he rises back to stand straight. "You move and fight as though you had two more arms, rather than restricted to just one."

"Hence my title, as Master Three Arms," the elderly man says with a chuckle, turning to where he had left his silk top and donning it once more. "I am told you wish to take the lotus of my students, Soufe, with you when you leave to return to America. Is this so?"

"I wished only that she be allowed a choice to either stay, or to come with us if she so desires," he says with a glance over his shoulder where the young woman in question stiffens, obviously not knowing of the terms he had stated the day before. "I firmly believe that we should be allowed to pursue our own destiny, rather than have it thrust upon us without choice."

"For all that the Great Khan extends his Empire and seeks to bring more under his rule and control, we do not wish to smother the choices of our people, for that way leads stagnation and death," Three Arms says with a toss of his head as he deftly ties his sash in place one handed. "Any within the Khan's lands are free to worship in any fashion they choose, so long as they obey the laws of the lands. The only religion that has additional restrictions is that of Islam, in the form of heavier taxes to allow for their daily prayers."

Tony ponders this for a moment, "We have no such restrictions in my land, why does he tax them specifically?"

"The Khan is a student of history," the old master says, resuming a cross legged seat at the head of his dojo. "And he saw the course their extremism led to if allowed unchecked just before the Shift, just as Christianity in the Middle and Dark Ages, Rome before them, and in America with Manifest Destiny upon the Native Americans."

Tony only nods in response, unable to counter the argument that Colonial Americans conducted what amounted to genocide against those who originally inhabited his homeland.

"If Soufe wishes to leave, I am content in the knowledge that she will have an adequate teacher during her travels to continue her education along the Way of the Warrior," Master Three Hands says, bowing from his seated position, at which Tony returns the bow and leaves with Maddie, Soufe and her guard following, retracing their route back to their rooms without error.

Richard looks up from where he sits on his couch reading reports from his scouts, troop dispositions for the Azteka force moving up from the Southwest along the coast. The numbers are high, more than he and the others of the region can muster quickly, but of a composition that makes him fairly confident that he can juggle his own assets to win the battle. The crux of the battle plan, though, rests on the mystical and magical component, of which Odin is pretty strong, but he'd be happier with an Ace or two up his sleeve. He smirks as his front door opens and Jocelyn and Ashley run through and up the stairs to their rooms as they shout hello in passing, hoping to get one of those Aces arranged shortly.

"I blame you for all this, I hope you know that," Autumn says as she leans her staff against the wall next to the front door, pulling her thin grey cloak off of her shoulders.

"I expected nothing less," he says with a chuckle, glancing up from his stack of reports on the coffee table. "Did I miss anything in the reports I sent you?"

"Not really," she says with a shake of her head, sitting down on the couch with a huff. "What wasn't in there Atticus was able to fill in, and I may have more questions after I meet with the groups and get a feel for them. Question, though. How long have you been planning this?"

"I never planned for it," he says with a toss of his head, leaning back in the heavy leather armchair he sits in, picking up his beer. "But after what I, and the rest of the assault force saw you do in New Orleans, I felt it was an eventuality, so I put Atticus on it and had my security guys correlate the relevant info."

"Well, the four groups are meeting today and in the next day or so I am going to talk to them one at a time and try to herd the cats to one big meeting in the next week," she says with a sigh, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. "How did this happen to me? I didn't want this. I just wanted to tend my shop and do well."

"Price of success, sis," Richard says with a shake of his head, finishing a pull of his beer. "The better you do, the more responsibility follows you. And if you have a responsible nature, as you and I both do, we can't shy away from it. How much more safe will these people be if they are united than if they aren't? With a community to draw on, they are less likely to be pushed around by the Vohls or the Rabbis if they try to work into their businesses and neighborhoods."

"And then you have to say that so that I feel like I _have_ to do it now," she groans.

"I'm surprised I'm the one who's telling you this and not your goddess, they're usually more involved once you get to this level," Richard says with a curious tone.

"That's not, generally, the way I worship," Autumn says with a frown and a shake of her head. "But it's past time that I do a divining to try and speak with them, her, I mean. After the duel and now this, I can't put it off anymore. I'm really dreading the conversation."

"Why?" he asks with a frown, puzzled.

"Because when it's done, I'm pretty sure you're going to have a hard time not saying outright 'I told you so' and subtly rubbing my nose in it," she says, her eyes still closed and head leaned back and shaking her head again.

Richard just chuckles in response, putting his beer down and leaning forward, "Well, in anticipation of that, I have a request to make."

"A request?" Autumn says as she lifts her head and looks at him with narrowed eyes. "Why am I dreading what this request will be?"

"Mexica is making a push up from the southwest," Richard says, pointing to a map on the coffee table. "Myself, the Norse and some official forces along with as many Mercs as I can convince to come along, are going to try and stop them from solidifying the foothold they've gotten in southern Texas and hopefully shove them back over the border. The National Guard is trying to mobilize some forces to add to it, but their deployment timeline doesn't look good."

Autumn sighs and leans forward to look at the map as he talks.

"They've crossed the border and are closing on Corpus Cristi, I don't think we can get sufficient forces in the field to stop them before they come to their borders, and they're screaming for help," Richard says, pointing at the curve of the Gulf of Mexico as he does. "The Governor has asked both the Norse and the Horde for help, but I'd feel better with more help on the magic side. I Claimed land, but this will be well past both my and Odin's borders, so we won't have as much to use, and I'm not exactly proficient with that kind of fighting, yet."

"You want my help," she says with a frown and a sigh.

"I want your people's help," he corrects her. "You are nothing to ignore on your own, granted, but the folks that would come to your call can help as well."

"They're not combat mages, Rich," Autumn says with a shake of her head. "These are mostly simple Kitchen Witches and the like, they cast simple charms and enchantments. If there's a dozen that can cast a combat ward I'd be surprised."

"There's eighteen, I think," Richard says, which earns him a glare. "My guys did background checks, we're thorough, what can I say?"

"My point being, we're no help to an army on the march," she says with a wave at the table.

"Maybe, maybe not," Richard says with a shake of his head. "Your power comes from faith, faith comes from belief, and when shown how powerful the reward can be for a strong faith, the faith all around becomes more powerful, building it up to be stronger than it was."

Autumn blinks at him, "Wow, I keep forgetting how much more you know about magic now than you did when we were growing up. You used to be very 'Rock, fix' back when we were younger. Still kind of are, come to think of it."

"It's not a magic reference, it's an organizational one, actually," he says, ignoring her joke. "But it still holds true. You go out and show them what you can do, and their faith becomes stronger, and they become stronger, they will be able to do more."

"In time, yes, but not now," she says with a shake of her head. "Right now, we're not even a group in any kind of definition of the word."

"I didn't say to start sprinting right away," Richard says with a shake of his head. "I didn't turn the Horde into what it is today overnight. I've been chipping away for years to get them where we are, and it's still a struggle every day to keep them pointing in the same directions, sometimes."

"Yeah, I don't envy you that," she concedes, lying back on the couch again. "So what do you propose?"

"When you meet, if they don't bring it up about the mission I'm leading, it is quickly becoming semi-public knowledge, tell them you're asking for volunteers, if you're willing to come with us," he says with a shrug. "If you come, we can work out dedication rights to any battlefields we use along the way."

She makes a moue back and forth with her lips as she stews that over for a few moments, initially wanting to just reject it, but knowing that if she were to dedicate a battlefield to Brigid that the goddess would be pleased to no end. Not to mention that it would bolster the followers in the area here and wherever they fight as well, thereby spreading the influence of her faith.

"You said the last on purpose," she accuses him with no heat, crossing her arms.

"Duh," he says with a chuckle of his own, picking up another report to resume reading about his upcoming opponents.

Tony walks into the rooms he shares with Maddie and sighs as he is able to relax, having just completed the mirrors for the Khan while under the observation of three Imperial Mages. Last night, after his sparring match with Master Three Arms and before the magic arrived around nightfall he had spoken with Ogedai, who wished to negotiate for details beyond the simple bargain struck the day before. The bargain had specified he would not give them the secret, and that he would give the Khan five mirrors, but not the conditions around the creation of said mirrors. So, upon the completion of their early dinner Tony had conceded to allow the Imperial Mages to witness him work, though only one was permitted to take notes, the others merely to watch. In exchange he is being given two Rocs of his own to keep, a male and female, as well as half the mirrors' weight in gold.

The last caveat caused some consternation, as it would mean it would be cheaper to have him make small mirrors, but harder for their observers to figure out what he did, as they would be quicker to complete and smaller and more difficult to study later. When he'd arrived in the workshop he'd stipulated he needed, the three Mages were waiting at a table to the side, two older men in their fifties and a younger one in his twenties writing quickly while watching him with eagle eyes the entire time. When he was finished, there were two pairs of large mirrors, five feet tall, three feet across in simple utilitarian frames, two pairs of steel mirrors two feet by two feet square and less than a half inch in depth, making them very heavy but durable, and one pair of circular steel mirrors as big around as his hand. Now with the magic wave coming to an end and having enchanted those five pairs of items Tony is ready to call it a day, considering it looks to be late morning and he's been up since the previous dawn.

"You're back sooner than I thought you would be," Maddie says, rising from where she sits next to a table, Ming across from her as Maddie is improving her Chinese reading and writing.

"They laid out the materials in such a way I couldn't really bullshit what I needed in what order, though I did throw in some misdirection and overpowered some things to keep them guessing," he says as he pulls his weapons from his belt and sets them on the rack by the bed.

"I will have food brought, before you rest," Ming says as she collects up the books they had laid out for studying, then leaving the two alone.

Maddie helps him stow away his gear and hands him soft silk robes provided by the palace which he accepts with a bit of a frown, but dons as it means they can clean his gear now, let it dry and be ready for them to leave tomorrow morning.

"Soufe came and saw me while you were working," Maddie says, smiling at him. "She has decided to come with us, her and three others from her household."

"She has a household?" Tony asks surprise as he sits in a chair and leans back with a sigh, his back cramped from being hunched over carving runes for hours.

"She is a princess," Maddie reminds him, sitting herself across his lap, wrapping her arms around him and grinning. "Most of her household were staff and servants, but the three that will be coming with us trained with her and fought beside her in the battles she fought for her father against the Russians and some of their other tribes in the Empire."

"Warrior handmaidens," Tony says with a chuckle. "You attracted a warrior princess and her deadly handmaidens."

"I wouldn't call them maidens," Maddie says skeptically with a joking tone. "They look like some tough bitches. And I sparred with them last night, they've got good reflexes and top notch training. They won't be dead weight on the trip."

"Better or worse than Tim?" he asks, head tilted in serious question.

"Better training, definitely," she says slowly and thoughtfully. "Far better experience, they've fought in real wars. If pitted one on one, Tim would probably lose, if they have their blades. They'd lose if he had his rapier, his reflexes as a shapeshifter are just too fast with a reach advantage like that."

"And Bagira doesn't hold a flame to that, yet," he observes with a nod of his own and a small frown. "She's been training well, but she doesn't take to it as easily as the rest of us have. I think it's because she's a panther at heart, and not a human."

Maddie thumps him on the head with her knuckles and he jerks back in surprise, holding his head and staring at her.

"Rosita's beastkin and just as smart as anyone else," she scolds him with a frown. "Don't be prejudiced."

"Rosita's half human, half animal, with LycV on both sides of her family," Tony says with a shrug as he rubs his stinging scalp. "I've never met an actual animal-were until Bagira. And I didn't say she's dumb, just that she's not learning as fast as you or I did. Even regular people learn at different speeds."

Maddie only narrows her eyes and holds a finger out warningly, then rises and opens the door to their rooms as a cart with food on it is rolled in.

Autumn takes a deep breath to center herself as she kneels in her back yard, wearing only a grey robe within a circle she has prepared in the short grass. The circle is for protection but also is in tune with the elements and ringed with Celtic runes along its edges, the circle and runes glowing low in the overcast afternoon light. Her staff rests to her side and she pulls a pouch from her waist, pulling six rough cut stones from it to tumble into her palm. She takes the small pen knife from her side and cuts across her palm with a sharp gasp, the runes upon the stones quickly covered in her blood.

She chants the invocation and tosses the stones before her, each glowing a different color as they tumble upon the short grass, the three primary colors of red, blue and yellow, and the three main mixes of those colors, green, purple and orange. The stones throb in time with Autumn's pulse as she continues to chant, beginning to rock back and forth, forward and back as the magic pulls her into its grip. She doesn't like to conduct the ritual because she has to surrender herself to it, the power of the Earth, Gaia, as well as to her goddess. She has faith and she trusts her deity, but the loss of control is not a feeling that she relishes, and has known witches who reveled in that feeling of surrender and were brought low for that addiction.

Her chant grows in strength, and soon her mouth is dry but her mind is no longer paying attention to such things, as her eyes drift close and her vision pulls back from her body to float above her and rise higher and higher within the circle of protection around her. Her perception rises higher and higher, but instead of looking around at the dimly lit city around her, her gaze is drawn upwards to the approaching clouds until she passes into their murky embrace. Her feeling of disembodiment shivers for a moment and the clouds part to show herself walking with a distant feeling onto a fresh green clearing, wildflowers knee high sprinkled around her for as far as she can see.

She glances down and she is wearing a grey robe, as she does below, but not of simple light wool but of a fine fabric lighter and finer than silk, runes stitched along the hem in silver writing. She walks forward barefoot to where a willow tree awaits her a few dozen yards away, a red haired woman sitting upon the roots. The woman is turned away from her, the long coppery hair falling past her seated hips to spool beside her, the hair shimmering like fire in the shining sunlight. Autumn lowers herself and kneels towards the woman, as she had the only other time she has actually managed to have a vision of Brigid, the last time even less detailed than this, though she was blessed then to receive the incantation for divine fire.

"Great Brigid, goddess of the flames, poet, smith and healer, grant me your wisdom," Autumn says as she lowers her forehead to the ground in respect and prayer.

"Rise, my child," the woman says, her voice like iron and yet musical, deep yet definitely feminine.

Autumn hesitantly rises her eyes and sits on her heels as the woman turns and looks at her from green eyes framed by red eyebrows and light freckles on a heart shaped face, her beauty making Autumn gasp involuntarily.

"You seek my wisdom and guidance in the path ahead, do you not?" Brigid says, and Autumn nods, averting her eyes, feeling unworthy to look upon the goddess she has worshiped for over a decade now.

"I do, my lady," she says, swallowing her nervousness down. "I have been placed in a position I am not comfortable with, that I did not seek, nor do I want. I seek wisdom in how to proceed."

"It is simple," Brigid says with a laugh and Autumn can't resist looking up at her goddess smiling at her and leaning forward. "You go forward. You cannot go back, not now. That life you had is gone, and you know that as well as I do. The only way forward is to go _forward_. You know this, you do not seek my wisdom, not truly, you seek my permission."

"But I am not a great leader," Autumn says with a shake of her head. "I am but a shop keeper, a sister and a friend. I have never led men or women in battle, or organized a great pilgrimage, or even led a circle of seven or more in a spell."

"Many leaders were not a sister, a shop keeper nor a friend, and they fell from their path, were led astray and corrupted," the goddess says with a rueful shake of her head. "Perhaps what my people need is not a general or a king, but something else… Some _one_ else."

"I… I am afraid," Autumn admits, shying away, embarrassed. "If I fail, it won't be just me that pays the price, others will too. With money, but also quite possibly with their lives."

"Would you entrust my people, and those like us to the tender care of others?" Brigid asks with an arched eyebrow, her tone sharper now. "Others who _wish_ to have power over others? Who enjoy such positions and seek for more power over others?"

"No, I do not," Autumn says with a firm expression of her own, the Appellation Council in the forefront of her mind.

"Then the time has come for you to step into the light of the sun, my child, and bathe in my radiance," Brigid says, waving to the side, where ten yards or so distant a bright ray of light cascades down onto the grass, brighter than the rest of the meadow they sit in. "Go, and be baptized anew in my name."

Autumn takes a single breath and stands, nodding internally before striding from her seat to where the curtain of light beckons her. She doesn't hesitate but walks directly into the cleansing light with her chin held high and eyes open and unflinching just before the light sears her with pain and sends her plummeting back to Earth.

Autumn gasps as she falls forward in her circle, the warm grass of the afternoon rasping along her face as she takes deep draughts of air into her lungs, the memory of searing fire still tingling on her nerves. She rolls to her side then her back, looking skyward as she breathes deeply, her heart now thumping loudly in her ears as she looks up at the overcast sky, a break in them appearing suddenly to allow a lance of light to pierce through the sky above. Autumn slows her breathing as her heartbeat recedes from the forefront of her mind, her mind accepting and acknowledging the sign above her and the message her goddess has given her. She rolls to her side and starts to push up to her knees, but pauses when she sees that the robe she wears is not the simple wool she had when she started the spell, but of the silk-like fabric of her vision.

Autumn's expression firms up and she nods to herself as she takes her staff in hand and rises to her feet, knowing the path she must now follow with utter certainty.

Tony stretches and gladly mounts up on Trixie behind Maddie, the only mount among their group to be riding double, but also the largest by far compared to the much smaller Ptactors and the Rocs that are sized in between the two, though with wingspans that reach out nearly as far as Trixie's, even though they mass less overall. He clicks his harness in and straps his legs in place and as they finish the last of their own checks Maddie kicks her wyvern and they leap into the air, the Ptactors and Rocs following them. Tony glances back and marvels for a moment at the fact that their formation has Trixie, two Ptactors, and six Rocs in their group that will be traveling home, and another twelve Rocs arrayed around them as escort and protection through the Khan's lands.

He turns back towards the front and for a moment his fear of falling is completely gone as they rise higher in the sky, circling around an air thermal that brings them up towards the clouds. They turn at the top of the current of air, thousands of feet above the ground and Trixie turns towards the rising sun, the following Ptactors and Rocs spread out behind her in formation to use the air currents she leaves in her wake. Tony grins as he looks back at the group following them and glad to have cleared the hurtle of negotiating their way free of Mongolian territory, especially since they'd also managed to get a number of precious gems in exchange for the value owed for the mirror trade deal. He is fairly certain that when he talks to Aunt A next and explains just what he got in exchange she's going flip out then demand he invest it immediately before he loses it on the trip.

Thoughts of what he should spend his new found money on, if he gets the chance, carries his thoughts as they fly for the day, and before the sun is halfway down to the west they begin their descent to a Mongol outpost. They circle around from above as they descend slowly to allow the occupants of the outpost time to prepare for their arrival and when they land Tony can see that cattle have already been staged to the side prepared to be slaughtered for the mounts to eat. They dismount and strip the mounts, which are eager for a fresh meal and once chained into their stables eat the fresh carcasses that are brought to them by wagon and cart.

Tony is sitting at a table with others from his party and discussing the rest of their journey when Ming approaches from where they have rooms upstairs in the three story utilitarian wooden barracks, the first floor a common room and meal room.

"The Khan is on your mirror to home, he needs to speak with you and Maddie, a mission has come up," Ming says plainly in English and where they had been laughing a moment ago they are now somber and serious as they hurry up the stairs to where the mirror is.

"What's up, pop?" Tony asks as he sits down on the bed in front of the small mirror propped on a chair to provide an angle, Richard's expression dour on the surface from across the ocean.

"Maddie, do you remember the ship you traveled on to get across the Pacific?" he asks, looking at Maddie, who nods in response. "They have responded to a distress call from a cargo container, south of the Bering Strait, but north of the island chains of Alaska. Pirates have taken a ship and they're in a standoff right now, they have hostages they are threatening to kill if they try to board. The crew managed to disable the mechanical engines and the magic engines are slow and difficult to get running without the full crew chanting to get it started."

"The ship we came on has Marines, but they aren't trained to handle a situation like that," Maddie says in explanation to Tony. "Holding their own ship or maybe a straight forward ship takedown on something like that, sure, but not a hostage rescue."

"Nationality of the cargo ship?" Tony asks after nodding thanks to Maddie for the background info.

"It's American, the containers are valuable, but they also have a hold full of refined petroleum, diesel and gasoline," he explains. "It was bound for Anchorage from a shipyard still in Russian hands, having traveled around the northern coast and shooting the gap down to Alaska's southern port during the summer when the ice recedes enough to use those Northern Russian ports."

"Location?" Tony asks, pulling out paper and pen while Maddie reaches over and pulls out a large map with latitude and longitude, spreading it out on the bed.

He copies down the coordinates Richard reads off from the mirror, then holds them out to Maddie who plots the location and the two young adults stare at the map and the position relative to landmasses and their own location.

"I'm guessing the US doesn't have any other assets in place to act?" Tony asks while pulling string across the map to measure distance and doing some rough calculations in his head.

"None able to be put into play in less than three days," he says with a shake of his head. "And nothing with the Ptactors or Trixie's capabilities, much less yours and the Agogites. I got a call from the Admiral of Pacific Fleet after he was given an off the record account of _some_ one's activities in Australia."

"Oh, yeeee-ah," Maddie says with a wince. "I forgot about that. I thought Ming submitted a report."

"She did, as did Luang, but neither was flagged for my viewing pleasure," Richard says, raising an eyebrow with a frown at her through the mirror.

"Well, good news, the insertion technique worked like a charm," she says with a nervous grin and a thumbs up.

"Yes, definitely good news," he says with a nod. "Can you do the same thing here?"

Maddie takes a deep breath and shakes her head, "We don't have the chutes with us, just those back up emergency ones, and those aren't steerable. We left the cutes on the ship because none of us are certified to repack them."

"I'll brainstorm with my people and we'll hash out a plan," Tony says, looking from the map to the mirror. "We'll take off in the morning and make the coast late afternoon, rest for a bit, then wing our way out into the straight. I'll need the US ship to light a beacon for us to home in on, once we're close enough I can eyeball and find the target on our own."

"Good," Richard says with a nod. "I called in a few favors to get that ride, and it looks like we'll get a few in return if we can help them out of this jam. That ship is more than just being able to police our own shipping on the seas, but also the cargo's value."

"I have a lot to fill you in on from our trip in Mongolia, now that we're out of the palace and can talk without eavesdroppers, but we have to focus on this right now," Tony says, pointing at the map.

"Bottom line?" Richard asks, nodding in understanding.

"I accidentally let slip about our talks over distance, had to make them five pairs of mirrors, and a few of their Mages watched what I did," he says with a frown and a shrug. "In a few years or so they'll probably figure it out on their own how to recreate it. Sounded like that was a big advantage that the Russians had over the Mongols."

"It's rarely one thing that turns the tide of a war, but that is significant," Richard acknowledges with a nod. "That's a steep price for free passage, though."

"The initial negotiation was… tense," Tony says with a frown. "But in the end I got the half the mirrors' weight in gold for value and two Rocs in exchange."

"Male and female, I presume," he comments, Autumn having given him some info from her own call to Tony previously which included the flying mounts.

"Yes, and we attracted some more stragglers with their own Rocs," he says with raised eyebrows at Maddie.

"Sooo, Princess Soufe and her warrior handmaidens decided to leave the palace and come with us to America and the Khan said it was okay," Maddie says in a rush, not looking directly at Richard in the mirror.

After a moment to digest her words he sighs and asks, "How many?"

"The princess and three more," Maddie says with a hesitant and a not quite scared look at Richard.

"Somehow I'm not surprised," he says with a sigh of his own as he shakes his head. "I knew I was bound to rub off on you in more ways than just the fighting."

"You're not mad?" she asks, slightly timid.

"I expect nothing less than for you to be yourselves," he says with a smile of his own as he looks at the both of them. "The gold has been transferred into another currency, I presume?"

"Diamonds and other jewels," Tony says with a nod.

"Ice Fury in Alaska is notified that you will be arriving in the next week or so, just tell any shapeshifter you encounter who you are and they will take you to one of their safe houses," Richard tells them. "You can cash them out for their value there and have the money deposited into the Bank of Americas account I'll have ready in your name. That way you won't have to worry about accidentally losing it or having it stolen. It will take some time for the value to hit the Houston bank, but you should be back here by the time that happens, so it shouldn't be a problem."

"The thought had crossed my mind, it's no little sum of money," he says with an emphatic nod.

"What was the weight of the gold?" Richard asks, tilting his head.

"Almost two hundred pounds," Tony says with a shake of his head. "The pile of bars was not as impressive as I thought it would be when they showed it to me before we converted it. Ming handled that, the math after dealing with enchanting the mirrors was a bit much for me."

"Do you know how much that's worth?" Richard asks, a smile growing across his face.

"I'm guessing upwards of a whole lot," Tony says with a snort.

"Well over a million dollars, maybe over two," Richard says with a snort.

Tony and Maddie just stare at the mirror for a long moment, neither one speaking as they try to wrap their heads around what he just told them and coming up short.

"Did you just say we're carrying over two _million_ dollars in jewels with us?" Tony asks in an almost strangled voice.

"Two million?" Maddie repeats, her own eyes wide as she turns and looks at Tony. "They paid you two million dollars for five fucking mirrors? FIVE?!"

"You've given them the ability to instantaneously communicate over any distance during the magic waves, and with the possibility to create them on their own someday," Richard says, drawing both sets of eyes to him again. "That is a huge tactical advantage on a large battlefield in regards to timing, not to mention the strategic advantage it will give him in managing his forces across his lands. Think what it would cost if you had strung up telephone wire and two telephones with visual capabilities. How much would that cost? Not to mention the infrastructure to make it and the possibility of making their own someday. Now consider that there's no infrastructure in between that could be attacked or severed. A secure way to talk over any distance with very little chance of interference or disruption."

"Well…" Maddie says as she thinks it over, then shakes her head. "But two million dollars? Really?"

"Focus on the mission, you two," Richard says in a firm tone and both of the younger folks shake their heads to clear them and nod. "Call me if you need any more info on my side, and if you can give me any details on what you're up to during the trip. Watch your six, you two."

"Thanks, dad," Tony says with a nod and a wave.

"Thanks, Rick," Maddie says at the same time, nodding and waving as well just before the connection cuts out.

Tony stands on the edge of the beach, looking out over the waves crashing against the sand and beyond it to the rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean. He looks to his left and the escort from the Khan are lined up, watching and waiting for their charges to finally leave the Empire so they can return to their normal duties. He turns his head and looks to the right where his party that will continue to travel are checking the straps on their armor and gear, preparing for their mission tonight. Though they are all preparing for the fight, Tony is not comfortable with any but the Agogites and himself participating in the assault of the ship.

Tim hadn't argued, surprisingly, though he'd been in similar positions during their trip to meet up with him. Soufe and her three warriors had been very upset at being mostly left out of the plan to take back the ship. She cited that they all knew how to swim and had all been in battle before, both on the wing and on the ground when fighting for her father's campaigns. Tony and Maddie had both countered that he has experience fighting with the Agogites and they know each other's tactics and habits, whereas Soufe and her people are unknowns to them and will be difficult to anticipate. They had grudgingly accepted that once Tony and the Agogites secured the top deck that she and her group would be in charge of holding it while the others advanced below decks.

Tony is wearing his own black and ghost white armor, and though he is terrified inside that he'll fall into the water and drown he doesn't show it, his mask tucked into his belt and his weapons and black cloak hanging off his shoulders. He nods to himself and walks purposely to where Maddie is checking the straps on Trixie, she wearing dark leather leggings with twine stitching up the sides and her green vest and weapons attached. He smiles at her as she turns to him, her hair pulled into a low tail behind her head and the right side braided into cornrows, the left side shaved to stubble. Soufe and her three guards had all dyed their hair upon leaving the Khan's palace, Soufe's is now long and a dark blue that is reminiscent of the sea, and the other three with dark colors of green, orange and a stark red. Maddie, Ming, Bagira and the four women had sat in a circle and braided each others' hair and once finished had donned equipment and prepared for the ride tonight.

"Everyone ready?" Tony calls out loudly for the benefit of the humans in the group.

He nods as the shapeshifters raise an arm with a raised thumb, indicating they are prepared for the mission, the four Mongols barking excitedly and howling to the sky.

"Mount up and follow," Tony calls out and gestures to Maddie who climbs deftly into one of the Ptactor's saddle, Tim riding Trixie for the mission.

Tony mounts one of the Rocs, behind Soufe in formation and Maddie going to be the one to make the call on the initiation of her jump with the Agogites, he to follow after they detach as their primary plan. He looks around and confirms that all the others are strapped in, the Ptactors with Maddie, Ming and Kris strapped into them, Bagira on a Roc like himself and Soufe and her people on Rocs as well with compound bows at the ready. He nods and waves at Maddie who nods in return and shouts the order to lift, Trixie leading the way and the rest of the group all going airborne after her to rise into the darkening sky, low clouds hanging all the way to the horizon.

Autumn smiles politely as she enters the restaurant in downtown Houston, arriving for the meeting among the four leaders of the city's Pagans that are not already represented by the Vohls or Vikings. She had considered hosting it at her place, but forced herself to think instead what her brother would do, so she reserved a private room in the back of this fairly upscale establishment, which is not associated with any of the Pagans, but has security through a firm Richard operates and that the Shapeshifters cycle through. She nods to the maitre' d who doesn't ask her name but only nods to her and escorts her through the main dining area to the rear of the restaurant where her party is waiting.

She doesn't wear her grey wool cloak over her shoulders as she usually does, but instead has the silky grey robe gifted to her from Brigid wrapped around her over a pair of jeans and a white blouse unseen underneath. She has her charms on her wrist and neck, staff in hand and the patrons in the restaurant pause and watch as she passes by, the silver Celtic runes upon the hem catching the light as she walks, the guests dressed in suits and fine cocktail and evening dresses. Internally she cringes at the price she paid for the room, but also remembers Rich's advice on the upcoming meeting "You only make a first impression once."

She has already impressed them from her duel and they know of her reputation and some interaction with most of them through her store, but only in a passing manner, not as a witch, much less as a priestess. So she had indulged and is hosting this here rather in a secluded glade which would be her preference and more habitual for this group of people's lifestyles. She is constantly reminding herself that she is no longer a simple witch, but Brigid's chosen and must act the part, that of a Queen's Emissary. She continues to remind herself of this as she enters the back room and scans the four other Pagans in the room that are waiting for her.

The room is fifteen yards across and square, only a single rectangular table on it with settings for five, two on each side already with an occupant in it and a seat on the far side for her with a few extra feet of distance between it and the others. Richard had been busy with other things but she had a chance to talk over the phone with Mischa, who is very shrewd with the politics within the Horde and without. She had recommended the distance in order to prevent any of the others from arguing and fighting for the seat closest to her and on her right, as that would have symbolic meaning to some, real or not. The distance didn't solve that, but it mitigated it somewhat and place a visible distance between all of them and herself.

She walks to her seat as the others all rise to their feet and nod to her in acknowledgement, a pair of waiters by the back door she recognizes as shapeshifters, the security is posing as the help. She suddenly wonders if the others in the room realize that they are more than they seem, but doesn't raise the topic, only taking her seat as one of the waiters pulls it out for her. She notes there's a notched iron weight on the table beside her seat, there to allow her to be able to lean her staff on it and keep it within arm's reach. She leans the staff there and settles herself in her seat as she looks around at the other four pagans, all sitting as well.

To her right, closest to her is an older man who is around fifty years old, he wears a dark grey robe that is nearly black and has a chain of different metals and materials around his neck, each link different than any other. He has a thick head of hair that is brown on top and all white along the sides and trailing to the back, the finger length hair combed back and giving a slightly wild appearance. His bushy brows dominate his face, his dark hazel eyes nearly lost beneath the low ridge above them, though bright with intelligence.

Just past him is a younger man in his mid-twenties with black hair in a bowl cut and round spectacles perched on his fresh looking face, brown eyes behind the lenses and an eager expression. He wears a collared shirt and tie with a set of brown and dark yellow robes over them and a narrow wooden staff leans beside him, similar to Autumn's, though his is of oak and has no ornamentation she can see. He has a few pins on his robe, she makes them out to be symbols for the Welsh pantheon that is not very dissimilar from her own, and recognizes the belt of casting materials on his waist, just as she spied small vials on the belt of the older man sitting beside him. The two sit without concern, though from different reasons, in her opinion, the older man feels he has nothing to be concerned of whereas the younger man seems to be unaware of any reason he should be, an aura of innocence.

Sitting across from the young man is a young woman a little older than him, looks to be in her late twenties, and she wears slacks and a deep purple blouse, a necklace with a wire design of a dragon on the silk fabric. She has bright blond hair pulled back and braided down her back past her shoulder blades and her ears have matching wire dragons dangling from them, these having a tiny precious stone clutched in them, green, emerald perhaps. Her bright blue eyes and pale skin obviously not seeing much sun, and her softer curves and appearance giving Autumn the impression that she works inside and doesn't see much conflict.

To Autumn's left and closer is the last of the local leaders of the areas of Houston, and the one whose file she'd read most carefully, as Rich's people had placed a large stamp across it labeling him as Threat Level Charlie. That didn't mean anything to her, but Atticus had helpfully put a sticky note inside the folder that explained the threat levels and how they are organized, so she knows the danger involved. The file had the information and the data on the man's background as well as a description, which did not do justice to seeing the man in the flesh. The man simply exudes a sense of masculinity with broad shoulders and a thick neck from lifting heavy weights on a regular basis, his hooked nose not off putting but accenting his chiseled chin and strong, wide cheekbones. His dark black hair is six inches long and swept back from his face in what could almost be called a mane if it were not on the sides as well as the top, and of a luxurious color that demands fingers should be run through it.

Autumn suppresses the urge firmly and narrows her eyes as she turns away from him to look again at the others and giving them all a relaxed smile and a nod of greeting.

"I hope you have not been waiting long," she says as she reaches up and pushes her own hood back from her robe.

"Just seated, actually," the man on her left says, his voice a rumbling baritone with an accent, what she knows to be Algerian. "Your timing is, once again, perfect."

Autumn ignores the comment and turns to the waiter beside her, ordering a glass of wine, the others ordering drinks and waiting until the staff has left to speak again.

"I am glad we have been able to meet together, this is an important step for all of us," Autumn says with a smile around at the others. "I've spoken with most of you, and others have given me assurances through others prior to today," she says, aiming the last at the tall man on her left. "Now is the time to speak on what we have in common in hopes that we can help each other reach our goals."

"Yes, to become stronger," the man says with a nod, leaning forward and looking around at the others and before he can continue Autumn cuts him off.

"You are putting words in my mouth," she says with a slightly sharp tone of rebuke and a glance, softening it as she looks around at the others again. "We all have jobs and work besides our faith, and I believe we can help each other in both our personal and professional goals, much like the Horde and the Rabbis have accomplished in the region."

The young man with the wizardly look and glasses nods and leans forward with an excited voice, "The Khan has even published a working model for other organizations to use. We're studying it in our Economics class at Houston U."

"I've looked at it, and it does have a good template, but I'd like to add some sub-structures to it, in order to make it uniquely ours, and so it will fit our goals," Autumn says with a nod, glancing around at the others, who nod, though the man to her left has narrowed his eyes as he nods with the others, though slower.

With a sharp nod, she then explains how she would like to structure what she proposes they should call themselves, The Congress.

Tony tries not to think too much as the formation of flying mounts brings them closer to the dull dome of light in the distance, the US Navy ship concentrating their feylanterns on the top of the command center amidships. He and the other shapeshifters can discern it, even at this distance through the light drizzle of rain as their mounts beat their wings to keep altitude just below the cloud cover. It is nearing midnight and Tony can discern past the Navy ship to see a much larger boat in the water, what he surmises is the freighter they are to board. He signals ahead to Kris forward in the formation who nods and relays to Tim on Trixie, who adjusts his course to lead them there as the others still cannot see it, but will soon enough.

Tony is focusing on the details of his mount and preparing for the mission more than he usually does, as he still has a deep seated fear of heights that has not been dispelled. He's learned to fly and ride the Rocs well enough, even though the lesson was abbreviated, but beyond that he's really concerned about having to jump off the bird while in flight. Maddie and the others had shown no issues or concerns, so he does as they do, shrugging off the concern and acting like it's just another mission, another job. Maddie had given him a gentle squeeze and reminded him that it's okay to be scared, that he just has to overcome it, and that reminder not long before they took off has been repeating through his head.

As they close on the freighter and start to circle around it a few thousand feet above the water in the light storm that has five foot chops, causing the ship below to rock significantly, he gets a signal from Kris that they won't be able to do the initial plan of dropping into the water, they can't swim to the ship in those waves. He mentally frowns and gestures broadly so the signal is not misunderstood and gets a reply signal to confirm, which he repeats again and gets a confirmation. He swallows his fear and pulls his mask from his belt, pulling the thin cotton over his face, only slightly dulling his senses in the night before he checks their position then unhooks his harness from the riding saddle of the great bird. Once the straps and harness is free he takes a deep breath then pulls himself up onto the saddle to be squatting on it as the eagle beats its wings against the storm, his black cloak billowing behind him in the wind.

With only a slight pause as his heart skips a beat, Tony jumps up into the sky above his mount with arms outspread as he arcs back and behind the flying Roc. He quickly falls and dives below the formation, his cloak rippling behind him in the water saturated air as he falls and he pushes his power into the enchantment he placed on the leather. The cloak snaps out, support belts strapped around his chest and waist tightening as the cloak becomes a large pair of black feathered wings behind him, allowing him to catch the air and glide on the wind. The wings open gradually but the feeling is still a jolt to his body as he has only once before used this enchantment, and did not enjoy the experience.

He unfurls the wings from his back and quickly levels out to circle about five hundred feet over top of the freighter's deck, looking down to see how many sentries they have posted and seeing about a dozen total. He isn't comfortable firing his bow while hanging from this harness and the wings on his back, so he banks carefully and bleeds altitude and speed and swoops in to the front deck of the dark ship. A gust at the last moment nearly causes him to miss and slam into the outer bulkhead but he manages to tilt his wings and pop up over the rail feet first. He drop kicks the sentry who had not been looking outwards, launching him violently into a piece of steel machinery with a muted thud, the man unconscious and dying from internal injuries from the blow.

Tony drops his cloak to normal size by pulling the magic from it and pulls DrageBien from his hip and forming it into a bow, quickly drawing and firing three arrows in rapid succession. The blue fletched arrows cut through the night, riding the wind and strike the sentries positioned on the high points of the ship's deck. The freezing feature of the arrows means that as the arrows strike their targets they do not fall, but remain upright and apparently vigilant to the other guards on the deck. He shifts DrageBien to a spear as he starts to run along the edge of the deck along the rail, rushing to where he knows the next sentry to be and planning to reduce most if not all of the pirates on deck before Maddie and the others arrive in a couple minutes.

Maddie finishes counting in her head then nods and motions to the other Agogites, who nod or wave acknowledgment as they all unbuckle and unstrap themselves from their mounts. A few moments later she and the others have jumped free and are falling through the light rain towards the dim silhouette of the ship below them. Technically this is not a High Altitude jump, as they didn't need to use oxygen tanks and breathers at the altitude they jumped from, but they are still a few thousand feet above the target. So they are able to orient themselves somewhat on the target and steer towards it more as they fall, and Maddie grits her teeth as she waits for the right time to open her parachute. Too soon and the winds will blow them off of the freighter, too late and they may impact the deck before the chutes slow them enough for the fall to be survivable, even for shapeshifters.

A hundred yards or so from the shifting deck of the ship she pulls the tab and her parachute spills out, jerking her back and up and throwing her feet towards the ground in a snap as the deck of the ship speeds towards her. She'd chosen the front, open deck that has cargo containers between her and the main control tower, so she would be shrouded in rain and darkness, difficult for even a shapeshifter to see details of a parachutist in these conditions. She hits the deck with bent knees and rolls with the hard impact on the steel beneath her, pain jolting up her side as she slows until the parachute starts to drag her towards the edge of the deck, wind filling the cloth. Before she can reach up and release the metal clasps to release it, the chute is free and flying away into the night and the sea while she looks around to gain her bearings.

Tony is a dozen yards away, his katana flashing dimly in the night as he cuts the para-cord from Ming's chute then Kris' immediately after, the billows of fabric drifting into the night. Kris is grimacing and holding his right leg in his hands, Ming is shaking her head as though dizzy and starts to move to Kris's side as Tony moves to her.

"Any injury?" he asks, looking her over from her hockey-like tactical helmet to her feet with a critical eye.

"Bruised, but I'm fine," she says, rolling her shoulder and pushing the throbbing pain to the side of her mind. "What of the others?"

"I heard something crack when Kris hit, and Ming knocked her head on the deck good," he says as she rises to her feet and moves to the others. "The deck is pretty much clear until the next shift is supposed to come, no idea when that is, and the sentries up top are frozen in place. But we'll lose surprise quickly, and we have to find the hostages fast."

"He broke the shin bone," Ming says with a wave at Kris' leg, the bone beneath his knee bent and partially sticking out.

"Bite down," Maddie says as she pulls off her glove and shoves it in his mouth.

He fights not to roar as she pulls the bone back into the skin then shifts it back into proper alignment, twisting it to get it set pretty close to right then easing her grip and the bone slides back onto itself properly. Kris leans back breathing deeply and spits out her glove, which she picks up off the deck and pulls back on without comment.

"Stay here, when you're functional, move to Soufe and Tim when they land in twenty minutes," Tony says, and Kris nods understanding as he pushes himself to a rack of equipment and readies a throwing dagger and his axe as he pushes himself to squat on one leg.

"Everyone else, follow me, we're going below to find the hostages," he says to Ming and Maddie, who nod and pull their own short bows out and quickly string them with metal wire as they follow him to a hatch leading below.

Mitch sits on the floor in the Mess Hall, the freighter rolling slowly side to side as the waves push it back and forth, four men with dirty short blades and daggers watching them with contempt. Mitch is the ship's purser, in his late forties and hoping that this float would get him and the ship well into the black for a change and set them up for future jobs out of Anchorage and hopefully back down the American west coast rather than working the Asiatic Rim away from home. He and the remainder of the crew, all thirty seven of them, are tied and bound here in the Mess Hall, the Captain and First Officer had both been executed on the deck shortly after the pirates had boarded to send a message to the crew, some of the crew dying in the assault as well. They don't have any real fighters in the crew, just a few that are brawlers when they drink, the ship really trusting in the vastness of the sea and the usually nearby US Coast Guard and Navy ships.

The pirates had approached on a faster and smaller boat, and their freighter had no idea so many men were crammed beneath the other ship's deck until they swarmed out and over the rail. There were fewer than on the ship with Mitch, the freighter's full complement was fifty, but almost forty men with weapons and willing and ready to fight was far too much for the few personal weapons among the crew. The fact that the US Navy ship had arrived a few days after they had been taken meant that the Captain or First Officer had managed to get the distress beacon activated for help. Now he and the others are all hostages as the pirates threaten the Navy while using the magic engines when they manage to coax them to life, which takes them a few hours of work and cuts into their efficiency for the length of the magic wave.

The engines had growled to life a few hours ago and they are presumably heading to somewhere along the Asian coast, the pirates all having a distinct Asian look to them of slightly short in height, black hair and eyes, as well as their garb and what he hears them speak. He's no expert, having only visited a few Japanese ports in his youth and Hawaii when he was a kid, but they are certainly not Russian or American. Mitch just closes his eyes and prays once again to God and Jesus above that he lives through this so that he can see his wife and daughters again, both waiting for him back at port in Anchorage.

He hears a brief shout of surprise and he opens his eyes to a flurry of activity at the hatch leading to the Mess, what looks like two young women with blades in their hands attacking and killing the two guards with them. Between them a man strides past the coaming of the hatch with a dark green bow in hand and fires over the heads of the hostages, drawing and firing faster than Mitch can track.

The man turns from the room and pulls the hatch closed and spins the wheel to close it, the black cloak draping over his black plated armor, not US Military from what Mitch can tell. He watches as the two young women sprint to the other two entrances, faster than any person he's ever seen and his eyes open wide in realization that the shapeshifters of Alaska have come. The two women, both in dark vests and barefoot, though with snug fitting tactical helmets on their heads, have slammed and spun the wheels to lock the other entrances, shoving weapons from the killed guards the archer had dropped into the wheels to jam them in place.

"Who is senior?" the man asks, turning from the door where he has also jammed and locked the hatch, his face covered by a black mask with two white blotches over the eyes, a ghostly skull appearance.

Mitch raises his bound hands quickly and struggles to his feet as the man walks to where he is sitting next to one of the tables, pulling the mask from his face as he does. Mitch blinks at the shimmering lights along the young man's scarred face, having thought the man would be in his late twenties or thirties, but obviously younger, even with the heavy scarring along his left side.

"I'm the ship's purser," Mitch says in way of explanation as the young man pulls a curved blade from his thigh and cuts the other man's bonds on first his hands then feet. "Captain and First Officer are dead."

"Any hostages somewhere other than here?" the man asks, scanning the group while the other two women quickly go about cutting the others free.

"They took three of the crew, women, on the first day, but…" he shakes his head sadly. "I don't know if they are dead or not…"

"River, that's your mission," the man barks out at one of the women, now that they are closer he can see they are also young, they must all be in their early twenties, and has dark purple hair tucked under her helmet.

"Copy, find and rescue the remaining three female hostages," the young woman says without emotion as she stops cutting people free and going to the hatch she had secured, opening it then ducking through and closing it behind her without a sound.

"How many pirates?" Tony asks, snapping his fingers to get Mitch to focus on him again, more activity happening and getting the older civilian flustered.

"There were maybe forty that boarded, I don't think they left them all," Mitch says with a shake of his head. "In even low chop like this, they couldn't sail alongside, they had to leave after they secured the ship."

"So less than thirty, is that right?" the man asks again, and Mitch nods.

"Yeah, about that, it's why we've been going slow, they can't chant the engine to life quickly, and we were only able to disable the diesel engine. Are there other shapeshifters from Ice Fury with you securing the rest of the ship?"

The young man snorts and shakes his head, "We're not from Ice Fury."

"Where are you from, then?" Mitch asks, surprised and now a little worried.

"The US Navy and Marines needed real help, so they called Texas," the man says with a flash of teeth in a grin as he pulls his mask back on, turning back to the main hatch. "Inara, you're on babysitting duty. Keep them here and secure, I'm going to start clearing the rest of the ship, Kaylee and her girls should be topside soon. When I'm done I'll send for reinforcements from the Navy to clean up."

"Copy, Mal," Ming says with a firm nod of her head, starting to shepherd the crew into the center of the Mess before going around and warding the hatches to keep the room secure.

Tony stands on the deck of the freighter as dawn starts to light the eastern sky, the low clouds preventing a significant change of color but the lightening unmistakable to his eye. A boat from the Navy ship is closing with what looks like almost two dozen personnel on it, the ship itself having closed the distance in the night after a signal from Tony's team. They had declined to ride over by wing, and instead by boat, and since they had secured the top deck, hostages and engine room it was no longer critically important to get manpower aboard. Kris is in the engine room, hiding his limp as he overwatches the crew conduct repairs and maintenance, Ming and Tim are doing a final sweep of the decks to scent out any other possible pirates while the remainder of the crew remains in the Mess with Soufe and her three to protect them. The language barrier had worried Tony, but it turns out Soufe speaks broken English and the other three are beginning to learn as well. All their mounts are sitting atop the containers on the deck, the large Raptors looking around curiously at the sea while Trixie and the Ptactors are more used to the scene.

Maddie is beside him, the rain having slacked off not long after they secured the Mess, her helmet still clipped in place as she looks over the seven kneeling men on the deck in front of her. She had gone to the crew quarters and found the three missing women, two were dead and one was weeping quietly when she found them. These seven are the survivors of the pirates, Korean in origin and all looking to be mostly rank and file, no one of high rank or birth among them from the rough initial questioning they gave them. Tony senses the shifting in the world and takes a deep breath as magic falls away, tech gripping the world and he can feel the deck stop shuddering as the magic engine cuts out. The boat below pauses as it shifts to gasoline engines, the crew on the deck putting down bows and spears to pick up AR15s and strap pistol holsters to their bodies, magazines for the weapons' ammo following.

Tony tosses the rope ladder from the rail and waits as the Marines below scramble up the uneasy rungs until they arrive and start to gather as a group before moving forward onto the deck. Three approach Tony, all in dark green camouflage, one with the twin bars that he thinks means he's an officer, a Captain in the Marines.

"Captain Rutherson, _USS Clemens_ ," the man says, his weapon low and ready and the two younger men beside him watching the area for threats.

"Anthony Hessberg, Houston Merc Guild," Tony says, unsure how else to introduce himself to human authorities, his mask still on.

"Mr. Hessberg, I'm glad to see that Ms. Michaels was able to link up with you," the older man says with a nod of his helmet, raising his hand to tip the edge of it to Maddie slightly. "What's the situation?"

"I have two shapeshifters combing the decks to confirm we got everyone," he says simply. "They took the ship with forty, I count ten on the top deck, four on the hostages, eight in the crew compartment and wandering around, not patrolling, and one on the bridge. There might be one or two stragglers, but I have a wolf and a tiger shapeshifter hunting them down."

"We'll hold here, then, and stay out of your way," the Captain says with a nod, shouting an order to another Marine that comes up, this one with stripes on his chest, shouting the order to his subordinates and turning back. "What's the status of the hostages?"

"Twelve dead, including the Captain and First Officer, all before we arrived, the rest are in the Mess under guard by some of my people until we've finished clearing the ship," he explains. "The engineer crew is working in the engine room with one of my people, just in case. And these seven are the survivors. They are among those of the Pirates that raped three women of the crew, two of them having died from the experience."

The Captain blinks and looks over the faces of the seven men tied hand and foot on the deck, scowling at him and the uniformed Americans, but not fearing for their lives.

"US Maritime law…"

"This ship is still under my control, Captain. Do you disagree?" Tony asks, cutting the older man off.

Rutherson blinks and looks down at the men and back at his own seven men huddled around the climbing ladder and frowns, then nods.

"The ship is yours, Mr. Hessberg," he agrees. "As acting Captain of your ship it is your duty and responsibility to punish any accused of a crime."

"Thank you, Captain," Tony says with a nod, his mind locked into another place after having seen the remains of the two women who had died at the hands of these men.

"When a Marine Captain is on board a ship with its own Captain, we are referred to as 'Major', to prevent confusion," Rutherson says with a nod.

"Thank you," Tony says again with a nod, turning to Maddie. "You heard him, they're ours to punish. Let's carry out the sentence."

Maddie steps forward without a word and slams the back of her heel into the back of the first man's ankle, which cracks audibly, the man screaming at the sudden sharp pain in his leg. She continues down the line, snapping ankles and legs, some of the last men managing to crawl a short distance but ineffectually as Maddie catches them easily and shatters their exposed knees. Tony has pulled rope from the deck and ties a single length to the hands tied behind the backs of each wounded man without a word, ensuring the knots are good and going to attach a separate rope to the next man in line.

Maddie has taken the ends of the ropes and one by one she first ties the end of the line to the railing, then drags the screaming man to the rail and tosses him over. The rope is long enough to reach the two dozen feet to the waves and at first the man disappears below the waves, but Maddie quickly pulls him up until his feet dangle a foot over the water, Tony then securing the line to that length. They repeat this down the line, so that there are seven pirates dangling from near the stern of the boat as it rocks without power in the waves, the men's arms pulled painfully up and over their heads out of their sockets as they hang.

"They'll die from exposure in a day or two like that," Captain Rutherson says low at Tony's side when they finish, frowning but his tone uncertain.

"Less than that," Maddie says coldly from next to Tony. "They are all bleeding, and the sharks can smell it. In an hour or so they'll start poking around for a meal, and they'll get pulled apart one at a time. The ropes will probably be bare by noon."

Rutherson shakes his head as he considers this, then nods, "I'll send word back to my Captain that the ship is secure and we can expect turnover this afternoon."

"Very good, Major," Tony says, his own tone cold and distant as he hears the moans and screams of the men below.

Tony sits on the large turret on the fore deck of the _Oliver Hazard Perry_ class ship as they pull away from the freighter, wearing his traveling leathers instead of the black armor, still not comfortable with it and unnecessary on a US Navy ship. He tries not to chew his lower lip as he thinks over the early morning when he summarily sentenced seven men to hang above shark infested waters to be eaten alive. Part of his mind shudders at the memory of the screams he'd been unable to suppress as the men fought in vain to keep out of the reach of the sharks. He's certain the sounds will wake him for nights to come, but more than that the scenes of what happened to the women captured by the men in question, what they had done to them and the way they died…

As horrible as the seven guilty pirates' deaths were, he reflects on how those women must have felt when subjected to the deathly tortures they were forced to endure. Not to even speak of the one survivor that refused to stay on the freighter but is now in the Navy ship's sickbay and with Ming and the one female Marine on board there to keep her at ease. His own memory supplies the frustrations he felt when Maddie had been taken, tortured and bled to fuel a spell by Gaston not that long ago, and the fears and anger it had stirred inside him.

He turns his head in acknowledgment as he hears Maddie exit a hatch on the main control center to the deck, almost silent as she walks over, climbs next to him and curls into his side. He breathes easier as she tucks her head into his shoulder with a sigh of her own and he takes a deep breath of her hair, reveling in the scent of her, glad beyond measure that she is with him.

"It had to be done," she says softly, her nose rubbing against his chest gently.

"I know, but…" he says with a sigh and a tight frown at the lowering sun in the distance. "That put me over one hundred today."

"What?" Maddie asks, turning and looking at him curiously.

"With those seven, I have killed one hundred and three men," he says in a sad tone, turning and looking at her. "The contracts when I got to Houston, the battles in New Orleans, contracts back home, then the journey here… I have killed a hundred and three men in less than a year."

"And how many did _not_ deserve the fate that befell them?" she asks him with a tilted head and raised eyebrows, to which he only sighs in response.

"Rick says it best," she says with a shake of her head. "We eat the sins, but it's because those we visit violence and pain upon are deserving. We are the peacekeepers. We are the avengers for those who have no one, often enough."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Tony murmurs, tucking her head under his chin and enjoying the feel of her arms around him.

"None of us do," she says with a slight shrug. "It's the job, and it's who we are."

She turns her head up and kisses him gently then pulls him with her as she turns away from the sea and towards the hatch below.

"Now let's try to get some shuteye, we'll be flying for Alaska tomorrow, and back to travelling," she says, leading him by the hand to their shared cabin.

Tony looks over Maddie's shoulder as they coast on the wind above the Alaskan coastline, rising over the mountains and looking at the pristine wilderness below as they close in on the port of Anchorage. The mountains had risen from the coast and are picturesque, though short of intimidating since he had spent so much time in the shadows of the Himalayas and K2. The Ptactors and Rocs are spread out behind them, riding the currents behind Trixie, and though not comfortable yet on the back of the Wyvern, Tony's natural fear of heights is starting to ebb as they continue to travel. It is late afternoon and their mounts are starting to reach the limits of their endurance, having lifted off this morning before dawn and covering well over five hundred miles since they departed the Navy ship most of them had only spent the night at, their mounts perched on the deck of the warship and freighter.

They crest over a mountain range and Tony can see beyond where a harbor cuts into land, Anchorage beyond it, sheltered from the sea and with numerous ships waiting at anchor in the wide channel. Their destination is not that large port, though, but a smaller town south and easier to pass through relatively unnoticed. Tony glances back at the formation of flying mounts and admits to himself with a wry smile that unnoticed is a relative term, there's no way to hide what they're riding unless the fly by night, and the Rocs are not predisposed for that kind of flying. The Ptactors and Trixie have excellent night vision, but the Rocs are still day time predators, just as other natural birds of prey are, so flying at night is problematic. The other night flying to the ship had been difficult and had they not started before dark and had no other place to land it would have been difficult to control those without riders.

They coast on the wind for almost another hour before Maddie points at the small town below on the edge of the peninsula, Anchor Point. The formation glides down and as they approach Tony can hear a ringing repeating itself over and over from the town and he taps Maddie to have her veer wide and south to the dozens of ponds outside of town. They land a few miles south of the city and as they make their final descent onto a field not far from a partially paved road that connects the towns, he can see a crowd gathering, law enforcement judging from the uniforms and marked vehicles approaching. They land and Tony has them simply water their mounts and stay ready while he has Kris come with him to go talk with the approaching officials.

He has on his brown leather sleeves and his green silk traveling clothes he'd picked up in China, DrageBien on his belt in compact form, quiver on his back, kurki on his thigh and katana at his side. He has his mask off, but even so knows that his clothing will get him judged as a foreigner, which is one reason he has Kris with him in jeans, t-shirt and vest, axe on his back. Tony's scars and appearance may be off putting but the were-bear exudes the sense of "American" in a way Tony can't until he replaces his usual gear stateside, jeans and functional clothing over his tanned skin and brown hair. Tony's Georgia accent will probably confuse them, whereas Kris looks and acts pretty straight forward and will make things go a lot smoother, especially as he much older and they'll expect him to be in charge instead of Tony.

They are a quarter mile from the clearing the mounts are in when they reach the road and start walking towards town, but only make it about a mile before they are met on the road by three men on horseback and a dual engine pickup truck that has a half dozen men in the back. Tony and Kris stop in the road, both with their hands exposed and held easily at their sides as the group halts and the men in the back of the pickup jump out, three with sheriff uniforms on, two with forestry services uniforms and one with a blue police uniform that matches the two men who exit from the cab. The tech is up and they all have guns of one type or another, pistols and a few shotguns in the mix as they eye the two visitors warily. The three on horseback don't wear uniforms but the color and cut of their cloaks marks them as Knights of the Order of Merciful Aid.

"Halt where you are and identify yourself," one of the men on horseback says in a carrying tone. He would probably be just over six feet tall if he were standing with bushy brown hair and beard shot through with grey and wrinkles at his eyes placing him in his fifties. He has a lever action rifle in hand and his blue eyes are peering across at them with an intense expression as the other two knights with him scan their surroundings, as do four of the uniformed officers.

"My name is Kris Madden," Kris says with a smile, waving slowly. "This is my friend, Anthony Hessberg, and we're traveling home, back to Texas."

"You got to fucking shitting me," the lead knight says with a frown, spitting a line of chewing tobacco to the side. "I thought that message was a joke, not serious."

"So word was sent ahead of us?" Kris asks, tilting his head.

"Yeah, Ice Fury said they were expecting visitors to be coming through, Pack members from Texas, returning from Asia," the man says with a nod. "I figured we'd never see you, since you'd come in by boat. What the hell were those things, anyway?"

"That's a little complicated," Kris says with a shrug. "Can you guys ease up on the triggers? We're Americans."

"Relax, boys," the knight says with a nod to the officers. "They ain't invading, just passing through."

The officers all visibly relax, though a couple still glance around nervously.

"I'm Max Jones," the knight says with a nod of his head. "How many in your group?"

"Ten total," Kris says with a wave back at where the Ptactors are. "Five American, five immigrants. There should be papers waiting for us in Anchorage."

"They're at the Embassy," Jones says with a nod. "Arrived yesterday. I've never seen Visas processed so fast."

"Is there a general store in town?" Tony asks, joining the conversation. "I'm looking forward to getting into a pair of jeans and normal clothes again."

"Yeah, Marge's has everything you'll need," Jones says with a nod. "You look like you went native, son. And that ain't no local accent."

"South Georgia, sir, not far from the Florida line," Tony says with a wave to the southeast. "Had some adventures overseas and my clothes didn't make it, had to improvise."

"Hal, think you can handle a couple more in the back of that truck of yours?" Jones asks, looking at a grey haired police officer.

"I reckon she can," he says with a nod, waving to the back.

"I can keep up alongside," Kris says with an appreciative nod. "I'm a were-bear, and running a few miles is no trouble for me."

"Well, welcome to Alaska, boys," Jones says with a nod and turning his horse to lead the group back into town.

Tony picks up a second pair of blue jeans in Marge's General Store, then walks over to where there are shirts, picking up a three pack of them, then a pair of underwear as well. He looks at the basket in his hand and then walks to another section of clothing and pulls three collared shirts off of a rack. He stops by the jacket section and pulls a leather biker jacket from the side, grimaces at the stiffness as it isn't broken in, and hangs it over his shoulder as he heads up to the front counter.

"My, my, looks like you're stocking up," the older woman at the cash register says with chuckle, her grey hair in a bun on her head and laugh lines on her face, old spectacles low on her nose.

"Just glad to be back in the US, ma'am," Tony says with a smile at the woman. "Can you write down the sizes you have in women's jeans and whatnot, like what I have here? I have some friends that may need to come into town and get set up like I am."

"I think I can, but it would probably be best if they came in, with a look I can tell them what will fit and what won't," Marge says with a twist of her head as she thinks that over.

"You would know better than I would, ma'am," Tony says with a smile. "Most of what I know about women is from my mom and my girlfriend."

"Just as long as you remember that we're always right, you'll do fine," she says with a low laugh of her own as she puts his purchases in a thick paper bag as she tallies up the total.

Tony pays in cash Kris had given him, the were-bear going to the market across the street to buy food for the group to make into dinner tonight as well as arrange for some livestock to be brought down to tonight so their mounts can eat something fresh. He takes his purchases and asks if there is a motel or Inn in town they could stay at that has a field near it for their mounts to stay in. She seems puzzled when he asks, not knowing that they don't ride horses, and suggests the old bed and breakfast on the North end of town. He thanks her, takes his bags and meets Kris across the street, though with no bags of his own in hand.

"You said we'd get someplace in town to stay, so I arranged for them to make a reservation for our group for later tonight," Kris explains. "We can relax for a change, now that we're back in the warm."

"I don't know if I'd call it the warm until we're in Texas again," Tony comments, looking up at the unsetting sun. "This daylight thing up here is really weird."

"Only six hours of darkness this time of year," Kris agrees, glancing upwards. "Won't get dark till about eleven tonight, according to the locals."

"Well, let's swing by the cabins near the north of town then go get the others," Tony says, the two of them walking quickly to arrange lodging.

Maddie fights not to laugh as she watches Soufe and the other women with her all look at the shelves and racks of clothing on display in Marge's General Store. The old lady had been crocheting by the front door and unlocked it for them when they'd approached, the store normally being closed this late, even though the sun is high overhead, the high latitudes changing sunset and sunrise significantly. The Mongol women are no strangers to shopping, they had traded and bought things in their home country often, but in open aired markets and stalls, not in the American or "western" style. She'd explained that here there is very little haggling over price, and that a lot of things are standardized rather than custom made or designed, except for certain things or occasions.

She's trying not to laugh because apparently Soufe and the others are fans of old Westerns, having read some old books on the subject from America, as well as numerous movies to the same effect. So now the four Mongols are wearing jeans and plaid shirts, vests over them, though with sword belts still hanging off their hips and long duster like jackets over them. Marge had been very nice, since they'd spent quite a bit, and let them change into their new purchases before leaving, so they are carrying bags back to the Inn before heading to the steakhouse for dinner with the rest of the group. She's fighting not to giggle because each of the women had picked shirts and vests that matched and complimented their specific dyed hair and it makes them each color coded in their own way.

The weather is still cool in the far north, so the humans are not overdressed for the weather as they leave the store, though Maddie has on only her vest and a t-shirt over her jeans and assorted weapons. They stop by the Inn, and pack their purchases away in their stored bags, so that if they have to leave quickly they can. So it is about an hour after leaving the store that they arrive at the steakhouse, and Maddie slows her step as the aromas of the food cooked within makes her mouth water. They enter to find a nice hostess who directs them to a private room for gatherings and larger parties, the others having come ahead to get them the room.

"Hey beautiful," Tony says as she gives him a hug and a kiss, now in a pair of jeans, t-shirt and flannel shirt untucked and unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"I kind of miss the other outfit, you made it work," she says with a smile, pulling on the front of his shirt.

"I didn't toss it, it's back at the room in case I need light armor rather than the full kit you brought," Tony says with a half shrug. "The waitress should be back around in a minute, and I need to help translate, I think," he says with a smile and turning to the Mongol women and helping them to understand the food menus.

The group orders and they enjoy their meals and drinks together in easy company, and a more relaxed atmosphere, because though they may not be home in Houston, they are in the US and friendly territory. Two hours later they are leaving the steakhouse together, the sky finally dark and they walk the mile to the Inn they are staying at, chatting easily though still with observant glances at their surroundings just in case.

They arrive at the Inn to find a half dozen men and a young woman waiting for them out front, the men dressed in dark brown sweatpants and t-shirts and with large builds, obviously guards for the female in the group. The woman is in her early twenties with long brunette hair and standing a little over five feet tall, a slim waist and a face that is beautiful. The traveling group's demeanor shifts as they approach those waiting, identifying them immediately as shapeshifters and a subtle shifting of postures between most of the members of both groups stiffen as mental hackles are raised. Tony stays beside the Mongol women within the group and has a relaxed pose though he takes in his surroundings as do the others, his katana on his left hip and kurki strapped on his right thigh over his jeans, DragenBien in its compact form in the small of his back, even though he has no quiver.

"I am Madelyn Michaels of the Texas Horde, we come peacefully, travelling home from Asia," Maddie says as she steps forward from the center of her group towards the other group, of which the woman is also in the center of.

"Welcome to the land of Ice Fury," the young woman says, smiling pleasantly as she nods to Maddie, though her eyes are roaming over the group, settling on Tim, at which point she grins. "I am pleased to meet the Wolf Prince of Houston. My name is Lorelei Wilson, my father welcomes you to his territory."

Her gaze has returned to Maddie and she fights down the anger at the disrespect shown to her as daughter of the Khan, even if adopted, as Lorelei has marked that she considers Tim to be the actual leader of this group, rather than her, as agreed in their set up cover story.

"It's good to be back in the US," Maddie says after a breath to keep calm. "Seeing the world was interesting, but America is home."

"I was lucky my parents live far apart," the older woman says, taking a few easy steps closer as the two groups close the last of the distance between them. "I lived with my mother abroad until recently, and came to live with my father. I am still learning to call this home."

The local guards are focused on the outsiders, all but bristling as they stop a half dozen yards away, whereas Maddie's group focuses on all directions, being mindful of all their surroundings, all while managing to look almost relaxed after the initial meeting.

"I assume you received the Khan's message that we were coming?" Maddie asks, moving forward in the conversation and eager to have it over with.

"We have, and have agreed to the contract of safe passage," she says with a nod. "You are visitors in our land and will be given guest rights."

Maddie mentally relaxes at the wording, knowing that the term has real meaning among those with established power bases, especially public ones. In essence, while they are here they are under Ice Fury's protection and will be protected as if one of their own Pack.

"My father would like to invite you and your party to a dinner in your honor, tomorrow night," Lorelei continues, glancing again at Tim. "I look forward to seeing you there."

"I look forward to meeting the Alpha of Ice Fury," Maddie says with a nod of her own, which Lorelei returns before turning away and leaving with her guards.

After the group is gone and out of earshot Maddie turns back to the others with a sigh, "Great, another day added until we get home."

"We're in the US, that's a huge step in the right direction if you ask me," Tony says with smile and a shrug, looking around with one hand resting on the long handle of the katana.

"Still, I'll be happier when we're back in Texas," Kris says with a nod.

"Well, you all know the drill," Tony says, glancing at the others. "Bed down for the night, we'll fly to Anchorage tomorrow and make our deposit at the bank, then attend this dinner and get out of here."

"Can we try not to get bogged down on some quixotic mission while we're here for a change?" Tim asks with a frown. "I do have a life back home and classes I'm missing."

"Relax, you're getting paid to be here, and we'll get home when we get home," Kris chides him, Tony saying nothing in reply.

"Have a good night, everyone, we'll see y'all in the morning," Tony says in way of dismissal as they enter the front of the Inn and head to their rooms.

Richard stands with his arms crossed as he looks down at the table which has a series of maps laid across it, deep in thought as he absently rubs the stubble on his chin. Odin stands across the table from him, Thor on one side and Baldur on the other, the first two looking at the map and Richard alternately and patiently, the last frowning and brimming with anger. Also at the meeting is Tasha and Mischa, standing beside Richard, with Noel and Domasca behind them, all with firm expressions of their own, none with doubt on their faces.

"I think this is how we do it, questions?" he asks.

"How can you be sure that is what they will deploy?" Baldur asks, frowning at him, the only one present that doesn't trust Richard.

Tony sighs as he sits in the open offices on the floor of the Bank of America in Anchorage, Maddie sitting beside him and Ming in a seat close to the desk of the manager they are dealing with. They had arrived four hours ago to open an account, have the jewels they were given converted to gold and deposited for transfer and withdraw in Houston. It sounds simple, but he'd not considered that the bags of jewels he carried were not a bulk item with flat value, as the gold in the vaults of the bank are. Each jewel had to be examined and assessed by an accredited and certified appraiser, which he had to pay for and that is acceptable to the bank. Ming has been extremely useful in these dealings, as she runs the Xiang Pawn Shop back in Houston, which with the help of the Khan is the largest in the city and very successful. Her advice had included the other appraiser in the group around the inspection table beside the manager's desk, one who is giving additional appraising consultation due to the origin of the jewels, having come from the Court of Mongolia as a gift from the Khan, certifying them as such and adding additional value.

His expertise, such as they are at his age, are not in these fields, so he is half listening to Ming as she negotiates for the jewels while also counting the individual glass crystals hanging from the large chandelier hanging in the high ceilinged lobby. He's currently on two thousand five hundred and eighty seven, having already counted the leaves on each of the individual plants scattered around the lobby and sitting on some of the employees' desks. All twenty seven of them. He reflects that it's pretty cool that he is able to see clearly at such distances and discern such detail, but he also mentally sighs as he accepts that his mind game is utterly boring. It is while he is considering this that Maddie touches his hand and brings him back to the present and Ming closing the negotiations with the Bank on the final value of the jewels.

"I believe we have done very well," Ming says in Chinese, a language likely to be unknown to the others present so they can speak openly and not be understood.

"So, what's the haul?" he asks, standing as he replies in the same language, the manager walking to the main offices in the back, likely to get the appropriate paperwork for signatures, the two consultants speaking with another manager about their fees and payment.

"We were given jewels valued in Mongolia to be equal to the gold you were promised from the Khan for construction of the mirrors, which was two million, three hundred fifty seven thousand, four hundred and eighty seven dollars," she says, and Tony blinks slowly in realization of the vastness of the number while Maddie fails to keep her mouth closed.

"Well, uh, then what did we get here for the jewels?" he asks after a moment of silence while he collected himself and pushes forward.

"They appraised all the jewels' material value at near to what they were valued in Mongolia, which would have put you overall at a slight loss of around two hundred thousand dollars," Ming continues, and Tony shugs at the news.

"Still, that's over two million," he says with a nod, but she raises a hand to interrupt him and continues.

"But since they are from Mongolia and trade with them is rare, as well as the market for jewels from that region is highly prized in the continent because of the difficulty in retrieving them, their value rose as a result," she says, to which Tony's eyebrows raise.

"Stop showing off, Ming. What did he get for them?" Maddie says with a frown, having recovered from her initial shock at the amount involved.

Ming gives Maddie a small smile then turns to Tony with a pleased expression, "I am happy to say that you benefited well from the transactions. The Bank of America is opening an account for you in the amount of two million, eight hundred seventy four thousand, three hundred and eighteen dollars."

"Holy shit," he says, nodding as he tries to absorb that. "That's a lot."

"Relatively speaking, yes," Ming says with a nod. "That includes the deductions for the appraisers, fees from the bank and my own fee for conducting the transactions as your representative."

"How much did I pay you?" Tony asks, figuring she'd have a fee and not really worried about it, trusting her not to gouge her on the deal.

"Between here and the negotiation in Mongolia, fifty three thousand, eight hundred and twelve dollars," she says with a smile. "I have done very well for my time spent."

"Bump it up to a hundred, I couldn't have done what you did," he says with a shake of his head. "You deserve it."

He turns to Maddie, "And I need to talk to dad about footing the bill for everyone on this mission, since I can apparently afford it."

"He'll refuse," Maddie says with a shake of her head.

"Yeah, I think I'll need to talk to Aunt A about doing an end run on him with the Merc Guild or something," he says as he turns his attention to the returning manager who has a leather folder in hand with a stack of documents within.

"Mr. Hessberg," the man says with a smile which reaches his blue eyes under greying hair and eyebrows, and an expensive suit. "I have prepared the necessary papers and they are ready for your signatures."

Tony glances at Ming, who accepts the folders and reads through them, her eyes moving quickly but not missing a word as she reads. After reading each page she hands the folder to Tony with a nod of agreement and Tony sets the folder on the desk with a chair beside it and begins signing at the indicated locations on the pages. If he'd thought that sitting and waiting was boring, he was disabused of the notion as he initialed each page at the appropriate place then signed at the end of the document and handed it back to the manager. He is sitting at the desk and accepts the folder and goes through the document page by page, initialing and signing opposite each of his, a clerk beside him prepared to notarize it. When finished with the final page the clerk having witnessed both parties sign it, he stamps each page with a small clamp, leaving an impression, then places a wax seal that that he imprints with his ring after cutting his finger and mingling his blood with the wax.

"Congratulation, Mr. Hessberg, you are now a millionaire," the man says with a smile as he receives the folder from the clerk. "I will have copies of these made for your records. You can wait for them or I can have them sent to wherever you are staying."

"We won't be staying in town long, we'll be leaving in the morning," he glances at Ming.

"I will wait for them, no need for you to waste your time here as well," she offers with a smile in Chinese. "It would be best if you go meet with our hosts sooner rather than later."

"I dread the politics, but you are right," Maddie says in the same language with a sigh, frowning.

"Thank you for the help, Mr. Vincent," Tony says to the manager and shaking his hand.

"It was my pleasure, safe travels, sir," he says with a smile and a small bow before Tony and Maddie turn and leave the bank.

Tony's boots thump softly as he walks in jeans, t-shirt and a blue, yellow and white plaid flannel shirt buttoned up except for the top button with the sleeves down, a black leather vest over that. He has his kurki on his thigh, katana on his hip, DragenBien in the small of his back and a quiver of a half dozen arrows over one shoulder. His face is bare as they walk out of the bank's front door, Maddie in her usual getup of jeans, green dragonhide vest and dark purple hair with her twin daggers and large revolver on her right thigh, gladius on her left hip. They release each others' hand as the see the group waiting for them outside, members of the local shapeshifter Pack. There are four of them, three are dressed in sweats like the ones last night and look like guards, and the fourth is dressed in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, a long handled wood splitting axed hanging from his belt.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Michaels," the man wearing the axe says to Maddie, his posture relaxed but also ready to pounce as he watches Maddie carefully with brown eyes over pale skin and long, dirty blond hair tied back into a long tail behind his head.

"I am Mr. Johnson, head of security for Ice Fury," he introduces himself, then glances at Tony, studying the colors shifting across the scars on his face.

"Anthony Hessberg," Tony says as the man's gaze lingers on the scars longer than appropriate. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Johnson."

"I was informed of the human traveling with you," he says as he looks to Maddie now, the two groups only a yard apart in front of the bank, but to the side so as not to block the entrance, though people on the street are starting to shoot glances their way and keeping their distance. "We have concerns with letting anyone in our home, but particularly humans."

"We're _all_ humans, Mr. Johnson," Maddie says with a tilt of her head. "But Tony goes where I go. No exceptions."

"Then I would like to have a conversation with Mr. Hessberg, so that I can be satisfied with the safety of the people I protect," he says, his gaze swiveling to Tony again, his gaze hard even if his posture is relaxed.

"That's fine, let's go grab a table somewhere," Tony says to try and ease the atmosphere. "Do you know a good coffee shop nearby?"

"I would prefer you come to my office and we'll talk there," he says in reply.

"Fine, lead on," Tony says with a gesture.

"We brought a truck, you can ride with us, it's a fair distance to walk, especially for a human," he says, giving him a glance that is just shy of being contemptuous while waving at a four door pickup parked on the street to his right.

"Cool, we'll ride in the back," Maddie says as she walks that way, Tony following. "And don't be spooked by the rental that'll be tailing us, that's the rest of our people."

The man frowns at that comment but says nothing as he pulls out his keys and goes to the truck, him and one other sitting in back across from Maddie and Tony while the other two drive and ride shotgun. The tech is up so the mechanical engine starts without any issues and they pull out into the light traffic of afternoon and drive east. Fifteen minutes later they pull up to a low brick building on the edge of town, parking in the lot fenced in beside the sign proclaiming it is for customers and employees only, three other dual engine trucks identical to the one they are in parked there as well. They get out of the truck and follow Johnson into the building, passing a sign which reads JOHNSON SECURITY SPECIALTIES.

"How's business?" Maddie asks, glancing around the beige office of standard working desks, four of the eight in sight with people sitting at them.

"None of yours," he says with no heat, and she simply nods in reply. "But it is your father's," he adds as they reach an office door in the back with his name on it and he gestures to the seats in front of the desk, the two other men taking up positions just outside the door.

"The Khan, you mean?" she asks as she and Tony sit.

"He's hired me to ensure your safety while in Alaska," he says from his own seat, leaning his axe against the desk next to him. "And I take my job very seriously."

"I understand that," she says with a nod. "So what do you want to know?"

"I want to know how you got that mark," he says, pointing at Tony's face. "But that isn't part of the job. What I need to know, is what he is capable of. Your father sent bare bones info on you and your group, including him, but while the shapeshifters' make sense, his does not."

"What doesn't make sense?" Tony asks, having hoped to avoid this.

"You're a nobody," Johnson says flatly, waving a hand at him while he leans back in his chair then crossing his arms. "A human with magic talent, but barely out of High School. There's no reason for you to be part of this group."

"It sounds like you're making a mountain out of a molehill," Tony says with a shrug, not wanting the attention and trying to downplay it. "I'm a merc in a Guild that the Khan of Texas owns a majority of, I got a chance to get on this mission out of luck. It's a chance for me to see the world and get some experience."

Johnson studies Tony, his expression unchanging, "Where's your bow?"

"What?" Tony says, frowning and surprised by the question.

"Your bow, where is it?" Johnson says, then points at the arrows over one shoulder. "You have a quiver of arrows, but no bow. Where is it?"

"Oh, I, uh, must have forgot it back at the hotel," he says awkwardly with a shrug.

Johnson maintains his blank expression, then turns to Maddie, "There are rumors going around that a group of shapeshifter mercenaries were hired by the US Navy to help them liberate a tanker that was pirated in the Straight. I tossed the rumor aside because said shapeshifters could only have come from here if it were true. Now that I have seen how you folks get around, I think maybe it ain't rumor."

"It's not a rumor," Maddie admits with a nod to him. "My group and I stormed the ship. None of the hostages that were alive when we arrived were any worse for wear by the time we were done. They're on their way here now with a Navy escort. They'll be here in a day or so."

He studies her, then looks back at Tony for a moment before leaning forward and pulling out pen and paper, "It is my job to protect you during your stay. Let's go over your plans for your visit, and discuss coverage while you're here."

Maddie sighs as they ride in the back of a pickup truck towards the edge of Anchorage, on the two lane road that leads to Ice Fury's headquarters, what the locals call the Citadel. Maddie looks forward as Tony nudges her and she sees the breaks in the trees surrounding the road as they enter an open field a hundred yards across with a stone wall twenty feet on the opposite side. Heavy steel doors are centered on the road the dual engine pickup truck drives down, the magic engine roaring as they continue across the field. The doors swing outwards as they open, letting the truck through to the inside and they get a look at the interior. Where the Pack based in Atlanta has the Keep, and the Khan of Texas has the Bastion, this Pack's stronghold is compound of six separate stone structures of different sizes within a stone perimeter covering thirty acres of property.

The main doors are pulled closed by a pair of shapeshifters using heavy chains, then barred and chained closed, and Maddie frowns at the set up.

"We've got security back home, too, but you seem to have taken it to a whole different level," Maddie says to the guard sitting across from her and Tony. "What's the deal?"

"Not my place to tell, miss," the man says, shaking his head.

Maddie glances at Tony, who frowns in thought but says nothing as they three vehicle convoy pulls up to the largest of the stone buildings, resembling a medieval castle, and they get out of the vehicles. Their entire party is present, unloading from the back of the trucks, with an equal number of shapeshifter guards with them from JOHNSON SECURITY, all wearing matching black sweatsuits with a dark red logo on it. Maddie nods when Tony signals to her in the hand code of the Horde that they have thirty eight minutes left until magic drains from the world when they move into the building, the doors heavy oak reinforced with thick steel, following Johnson.

They stop in the antechamber and Maddie senses the tension in the guards as they stop in the room and the front door closes solidly behind them. Johnson turns to them, his own frame tenser as well, and though the visitors are alert their own posture is not as tense.

"You're safe here, and as outsiders I cannot vouch for you, and no one here can either," he says, looking at Maddie. "Please surrender your weapons."

"No," Maddie says plainly, shaking her head with a small smile, her hands loose at her sides.

"You have my word that you will not be harmed while you are here, or while I am contracted to ensure your safety," he says in a more formal tone, pulling a small knife from his pocket and cutting the palm of his left hand. "I swear it by my own blood."

Maddie nods, acknowledging the blood oath though her words discount it, "The answer is still no."

The guards' tension rises higher though only the Mongol women tense at Maddie's words, reacting to the guards' stiffness. Johnson frowns at Maddie for a long moment, obviously not having considered the refusal, trying to figure out why.

"What will it take to have you disarm?" he asks unhappily.

"The blood oath of your alpha stating the same," she says levelly. "My father has an agreement with him, not you or anyone else in this Pack that I am aware of. He is the only one whose oath holds any meaning to us, anyone else's are empty promises and lies."

Johnson tilts his head as he studies her, reevaluating what he thought he knew about her and what she's just said.

"That is a surprising position from someone so young," he finally says, then nodding to one of the guards and gesturing for him to go through the inner door.

"You read a file on us, but you don't understand what some of it means, I think," she says with a smirk and shake of her head.

"I don't suppose you'll explain it to me?" he asks with a tilt of his head.

"I'll tell you this much," she says glancing at the others with her. "The Agoge that I went through makes the Army's Ranger School look like daycare for toddlers."

He narrows his eyes at her, thinking over that for a moment before responding, "You believe that?"

She snorts with a smile as she shifts her weight to one side and rests her hand on her sword hilt with a cocky expression, "Not believe, know. If I gave the signal right now you'd all be dead before you shift with the exception of you, though you'd be dead just as quickly as the others."

His posture shifts at her statement and he glares at her now as he growls in response, "Big words when you're protected by your father's contract to protect you. If you weren't I'd show you how wrong you are."

His eyes flash blue at the end as he levels his best Alpha stare at him and she maintains her easy posture and now grins at him.

"The Khan of Texas is my father, Mr. Johnson," she says with a shake of her head at him. "Your Alpha stare is nothing compared to his."

His jaw flexes and he glares at her for a long moment before the inner door opens and interrupts anything he might have said in reply.

The man who walks in is in his fifties with finger length black hair shot through with strands of silver peppering it, his tanned face slightly wrinkled with age and his expression firm. His lean body moves with the liquid grace of a shapeshifter trained to use it a weapon, standing six and half feet tall wearing jeans and a blue flannel shirt. He has a six inch knife on his hip but is otherwise unarmed and he takes the room and the tense atmosphere of the guards and security chief with a glance. His serious demeanor becomes dangerous as he stops next to Johnson and surveys the group of visitors.

"I'm told the blood oath of my head of security isn't good enough for you?" he says as he looks at Maddie.

"I don't mean any disrespect, it's just that recent experience has caused us to err on the side of caution when traveling," she says with a shrug. "Our trip through China was not easy, and entry into Mongolia was tense. It's taught me that there is no such thing as being too careful."

He frowns at her, then nods in agreement with her point as he pulls his knife from his side and draws it across the palm of his hand, "You have my word as Alpha and leader of Ice Fury that you are under my protection and are accorded guest rights while in my territory."

"Thank you, Mr. Wilson," Maddie says with a solemn nod to him as she lifts her left hand palm up and cuts across the palm with the claws that shift into form on her right hand. "I swear that so long as we are treated appropriately as guests, we will act as guests. All of my people will swear the same."

The rest of the group pull short blades from their sheaths and make similar cuts to Maddie's and they all say the same oath as they draw blood.

"I have your oath and you have mine," she says with a nod. "We will surrender most of our weapons, though the humans of my group will retain two of their choice and I will keep two as well. These points are non-negotiable."

She and Ming had gone over the wording on both the oaths they would take and her terms the night before, in order to ensure a level of safety for the group. Even with the oaths taken, risk and danger would still be present and if they were not cautious enough someone may die, Luang's death still fresh in their memories.

Wilson frowns but nods solemn once more, "I have no problems with that. I understand how they could feel intimidated without weapons while surrounded by their betters."

Maddie's expression becomes stony and she takes a breath to calm herself and repress her initial reaction to what he said, wishing for a moment that she could just leave this place. She'd wanted to move through the area the same way they had China, but Rick had pointed out that one day Ice Fury may be their neighbors if they and the Horde continued to expand and that there is already communication and business being conducted between the two groups.

"That may be your opinion, but we view things differently where we come from," she says with her own firm tone, causing Wilson to give her a look of derision.

"In any case, welcome to Alaska," he says, then gestures to the guards. "If we can continue…"

Maddie nods and the group goes about disarming as agreed, the Mongols, Maddie and Tony keeping a pair of weapons each, allowing Tony to keep DragenBien and his katana and Maddie her twin daggers while surrendering the rest to be locked in a storage locker with the rest of the group's items. Once finished they follow Wilson as he leads them deeper into the building, down a hall and then descending a spiral staircase down three levels and fifty yards onto another floor and down another hallway. After a series of turns their walk ends five minutes later as they arrive at a set of double doors and enter a large hall set up as dining room, reminding Maddie of the feasting hall of the NeoVikings, though updated with newer furniture, settings and with normal looking people seated in it, fifty or so shapeshifters gathered total.

All the shapeshifters rise to their feet as their Alpha enters the room, silent as their gaze follows the strangers following behind him as he walks to a raised platform on one side of the dining hall where a table is set up on it for the group to eat. Maddie notices that there are no others at the table except for the woman from the other day, Lorelei, Wilson's daughter, who is standing at the seat to the left of her father's seat. They all ascend the three stairs and spread out on the table, Johnson sitting at Wilson's right and Maddie beside him with Tony beside her. The room sits as a whole after Wilson seats himself and the others in the room chat quietly among themselves as they wait for dinner to begin.

Large mugs with foaming cold beer are put in front of everyone, though Tony leans to the waiter and asks for water while Maddie picks up and raises her mug up toward Wilson.

"Thank you for the hospitality, may you live long and enjoy peace in your time," Maddie toasts in a loud voice, and everyone in the room raises a glass in response and drinks afterward.

Maddie nods in approval of the cold lager as she sets down her drink and Wilson turns his grey eyes on her.

"We are rarely so formal here," he says gruffly but not intended to be offensive.

"We spent some time on a Navy ship and they had a habit of including toasts every night at the mess," she says with a lopsided smile. "As the youngest person present, it was my job to give the first toast. So I got some practice, and it seems like a polite thing to do."

"How long do you plan to stay in the area?" he asks as dinner rolls are set on the table with crocks of fresh butter.

"We concluded our business at the bank, so we've got no more reason to hang out," she admits while ripping open a hot roll. "We'll leave in the morning, most likely."

"The Khan said my people are permitted to draw a pint of blood from your Ptactors, and take skin samples," Wilson says as he liberally spreads cinnamon butter on his own roll. "Our Mage Academy is fascinated with the reports of what he's done down in Texas to create flying mounts."

"We'll call him and ask, and if he's okay with it, we'll permit it," Maddie says, glancing at Ming who nods in understanding to find out.

Wilson studies her for a moment while eating his roll and Lorelei speaks up from beside him, looking at her with a slightly confused expression, "You are not what I expected."

"What did you expect?" Maddie asks, quirking her own eyebrow.

"Not a human sympathizer for one," she says with a glance at Tony, which he ignores as he spreads butter on his own roll. "But you have an attitude, and you shouldn't. I don't understand that."

"When you've been through and done the things I have, you get to have an attitude," she says around a half full mouth of roll.

"I am surprised your father lets you be exposed to such danger," Wilson says with a puzzled frown at her. "I know the cats encourage exploring among their cubs, my own Pack members are like that. But within reason. I understand you actually fought in the battle to retake New Orleans."

"I was captured doing recon and delaying the enemy from pursuing my team," Maddie says with a nod, picking up and taking a deep draught from her beer.

"You sound proud of that, I would think you'd be ashamed," Wilson says with a puzzled expression, leaning back and studying her.

"I had just completed training in the Agoge and I was fresh and inexperienced," she says with a shrug. "As junior as it gets, even if I was the honor graduate. I learned from it, and it made me stronger."

"And the fact that we killed Poseidon together by the end of it does kind of balance the whole thing out," Tony comments from beside her, smirking at her.

"I still can't believe you kept the skull," she says with a shake of her head and roll of her eyes.

"When you kill a god, you should have a souvenir," he says with a smile, making him look more his age despite the scars and experiences he's been through.

"This is what I get for you hanging around Thor so much," she says with a shake of her head, reaching over and taking his hand in hers with a squeeze for a moment before returning to eat another roll.

"I'm told you opened an account in town using foreign jewels," Wilson says, glancing at Tony then back at Maddie. "I don't suppose I could convince you to invest some of that locally, on your father's behalf?"

"It's not his money or mine," Maddie says with a shake of her head before putting another roll in her mouth. "It's his," she finishes with a nod towards Tony.

"And I'm not inclined to invest outside of Texas, where I'll be able to look in on anything regularly," he says flatly, which causes Wilson's nostrils to flare.

"You're the second human I've met that thinks they are more capable than a shapeshifter," Lorelei says with a frown on her pretty face as she leans forward with a narrowed eyes a slight look of derision on her face. "What makes you think you are better than us?"

"What makes you think you're better than me?" Tony replies as he leans back in his own chair, unperturbed. "I'm not being racist or anything, the Khan is far better than me. Thor, and a number of other people I know. I think I'm better than you because you're untested and untrained, except in your own mind. Your father is better than me, you don't become the leader of a Pack by not being capable. But misjudging others is a shortcoming that may one day prove fatal."

Lorelei starts to say something hotly but she stops when her father raises his hand and cuts her off, leaning to the side and looking at Tony intently.

"A valid point, surprising from someone so young," Wilson says, nodding in agreement.

"You agree with him?" Lorelei says with surprise at her father.

"Your mother spoiled you and sheltered you," he chides her, glancing to the side as steak, potatoes and greens are placed out for him and the rest of the table. "I agree that we are better than humans, but he's right that underestimating an opponent is unwise."

Lorelei frowns and rises from the table, storming away, her father shaking his head as she does, "She takes after her mother that way."

"Looking at your defenses while we came in, I'm curious if y'all are more paranoid than we are in the South or if there's something we should know about when we leave tomorrow about the surrounding area?" Maddie asks, changing the subject as she cuts up her nearly two pounds of rare steak.

Wilson pauses in cutting his own with a frown, "The nights are shorter here, and when it does get dark and the mist comes, monsters lurk in the forests."

"What kind of monsters?" Tony asks cutting up his own smaller steak.

"I'll have Johnson give you a file on what we know," Wilson says with a nod and a glance at one of the guards. "They are the reason we haven't expanded further in the last few years since they first showed up."

"If we find anything out about them while flying over them we'll send you what we learn," Maddie says with a nod, to which he nods his thanks then they all focus on their food and eating with the intensity of the animals they shift into.

Tony frowns as he sits with Maddie in their room at the hotel they are staying in on the east side of Anchorage, the file with photos of the monsters Ice Fury has been dealing with spread out before them on the bed. The polaroids also have drawings among them, and Tony picks one of them and looks at it closely while the others in the room with him, their entire group in the huge room they are renting at the Hilton. The thing in the picture is a large blob with appendages reaching out and pulling it along and pushing it, more like an amoeba, if it had eyes and mouths scattered across its surface and with three fingered claws randomly sticking out from where the appendages reach out.

"What in the name of Ghengis is that?" breathes one of the Mongol women as she makes a face of disgust while looking at a photo.

"A shoggoth," Tony says with a frown. "It's a creature from another dimension, an older and dark dimension," he says with a scowl now, dropping the picture he held.

"How tough are they?" Maddie asks, glancing at him as she sits on the chair by the desk.

"Very tough, and immune to most magic," he says with a frown. "If Ice Fury has been fighting shoggoths, nothing good will come from it."

"An older and dark dimension?" Kris asks from where he sits on the sofa across from a television, two of the Mongol women sitting with him, one with her legs sprawled comfortably across his lap while she uses a dagger to clean her nails. "How are they getting here, then? Is it an attack?"

"Could be a lot of things," Tony says aloud while rubbing his chin then moving to his pack and pulling out a small notebook and opening it.

Maddie notes that the book is one of his write in the rain waterproof books he took with him everywhere, and that it shows considerable more wear and tear than the time he should have been away would create.

"Here," he says with a nod as he flips to a page and he studies the words written there in Chinese. "The can be summoned and ordered about, but it is difficult and they often turn against those who open the gate, in order to allow their true masters from the other side access to our world."

"Who are their masters?" asks Soufe, tilting her head with a frown from where she stands beside Maddie, looking up from the photo she looks at.

"Beings we never want to meet or allow access to our plane of existence," Tony says as he closes the book and frowns as he puts it away.

" _Damn_ it," Tim says from where he sits against the wall. "You're going to take us after them, aren't you?"

"They are unnatural creatures from another plane of existence that are apparently making headway if they are attacking regularly over the last few years," Tony says clearly. "So, yes, we're getting involved."

"Shit," Tim says as he leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes with a shake of his head.

"But let's not clean up their problem for free or without support," Tony continues. "Let's talk with Johnson about making a deal to clean out the infestation with backup from them at the least, them out front is preferred."

"We can track well from the sky," Soufe says with a gesture at her handmaidens. "Our birds are trained well, eagle eyes see everything from above if only a thousand feet over the ground. We have done such things before, for my father as scouts."

"I think Johnson will not like us going into harm's way," Maddie comments with a frown of her own. "What with Rick paying him to keep us safe."

"The Alpha will jump at the chance," Bagira says from where she stands and leans against the wall by the door, speaking in Chinese. "He will eliminate a threat to his people, something that has threatened them for years. He cannot pass an opportunity to rid his land of it."

"Agreed," Tony says with a nod in English. "We call up dad, get him to adjust the contract with Johnson, we go on an expedition to find these things' base and we destroy it with the help of Ice Fury."

Maddie smiles at him, reaching out a hand to lay on his shoulder, "You're sounding like him now."

"Like who?" he says, puzzled.

"Like Rick, you sound like him when he's on a mission," she says with a smile, looking around at the group. "Somehow he makes it sound not just possible, but easy."

He smiles at that, having wanted to live up to the image of his father since before he can remember, even though he hadn't met him until recently. He looks at the group surrounding him, nodding as he takes them in and then shaking his head.

"Ming, call Johnson, tell him we're coming to his office. I'll call dad and get folks back in Houston make the adjustments to the contract here and we'll go hunting," Tony says, to which Tim groans but the rest of the group smiles and nods.

Johnson frowns as he looks across his desk at Maddie and Tony, where they had been sitting during the day, it now deep in the night and close to daylight now. They had just arrived and told him that they plan to kill the shoggoth next time it appears in the area then backtrack it to its source and destroy that, too. Maddie had added that they would contract his company and Ice Fury to backstop them, since the open contract on the shoggoth had been put forward by the state of Alaska to the local Mercenary Guild.

"The Knights of Merciful Aid were approached as well," Johnson says as he eyes them warily. "They haven't done much over the last year, but they may get involved as well, and I know my alpha is hesitant to let them get a look at our inner workings."

"Think Rick can get them to back off?" Maddie asks Tony with a glance, and he frowns.

"I'll call him and see," he says, making a note in his notebook in his lap.

"You're not a member of the local Mercenary Guild, you can't collect the contract," Johnson adds, shaking his head.

"My father arranged for everyone in my party to have temporary liscenses in all Mercenary Guilds along our traveling route within the continent, should something like this pop up," she comments with a smile. "He had a similar incident happen while he was in New York on separate business and he took care of a problem that was growing there. Made a good profit off of it, too, if I remember."

"The report we saw shows that the creature has been driven off but never killed, is that right?" Tony asks, to which Johnson frowns and shakes his head in thought.

"No, we've hurt it, usually with intense fire, magic fueled," he says with a frown. "We tried gasoline and other combinations of mundane fire, but it only spooked it, never seriously hurt it."

"Is it possible it's not one creature but a different one each time?" Maddie asks, tilting her head in thought and glancing at Tony, who is taking notes on the questions and answers.

"That is a disturbing thought, I don't know," he admits, making a disgusted face at the prospect. "The mass of it seemed about the same each time it showed up, but when it would run it seemed smaller, like it lost mass. I didn't notice it, the Alpha did."

"That's a good detail," Tony comments with a nod, scratching short comments on the paper. "Can you tell me how that battle went, since you were there?"

"We'd tried fire arrows, and they weren't working that we could tell," he says with a frown and shake of his head, crossing his arms and leaning back while looking into the distance and recalling the fight.

"It was in the Northeast part of town, and it had bypassed a residential area and attacked business fronts during the evening rush on a Friday," he continues. "Still seems odd it went for the buildings and crowds rather than the easy pickings of the housing area. Anyway, the boss got a few dozen of shapeshifters there, mostly wolves like him and started making runs at it while local law enforcement fired arrows at it. He had half with long steel spears prodding it to keep it from advancing, the other half were darting in with bladed weapons to hurt it."

"How much did it mass, how big?" he asks as he pauses in the story.

"About the size of a moving van, but it would whip out appendages to move itself and attack, either slashing or grapping to pull someone in to one of its mouths," he says with an angry frown. "We lost four people and five wounded badly when the Knights showed up. They had a few Galahad warheads on a crossbow, and knocked it around with that. With a couple of firebug Mercs following up with some lances of flames and burning sphere, it turned tail and ran."

"Did you try and follow it?" Tony asks, his real question.

"Boss sent three of our people after it, they never came back once they entered the woods outside town," he says with a shake of his head. "We tried following their trail, but never found any bodies, and the creature's trail went cold when it crossed a stream about five miles out."

"So it's not a stupid creature, then," Tony observes, frowning at his notebook.

"I don't see how you think you're going to fare any better than anyone before you," Johnson says with a shake of his head. "I'm older than the two of you together and couldn't take it down with a dozen of my people at my back and the Alpha of Ice Fury leading us."

"No offense to you or your people, but we're from Texas," Maddie says with a smirk. "We're like the Sparta of America. I think you'll be surprised at what we can do."

Johnson glares at her, his eyes flashing blue as he levels his own alpha gaze on her.

"How long between attacks?" Tony asks, interrupting his attempt to cow Maddie, who ignores the look.

"Varies between two weeks to as long as two months, no discernable pattern," Johnson grounds out, nearly snarling the words.

"How long since the last attack?" Tony follows up.

"Almost a month," he says, looking at Tony now, nearly snarling at him.

"Alright," Tony says with a nod of his own, glancing at his notes. "I have an idea on how to draw it to a place of our choosing. Is there someplace on the east side of town we can use for an ambush that would favor us and keep civilians clear?"

"What do you have in mind?" Maddie asks, glancing at him with a raised eyebrow of his own.

"I am pretty sure I can draw it to me with a spell," he says with a nod of his own. "We isolate it and hit it as hard as we can with magic fire, I'll contract those firebugs from the Merc Guild you mentioned, plus what I and Ming can produce on top of that."

"Follow its trail back the way it came, but then we'll lose it again when it crosses a body of water," Maddie observes, shaking her head.

Tony raises a hand and shakes his finger at that, "We don't kill it, we let it escape, have Soufe and her people trail it from on high. We follow it back where it came from, lead a strike team there and put an end to it."

"You seem very certain that this thing has a master of some sort," Johnson says with a frown at Tony. "It could just be a creature spit out by a magic wave, we did have the flare around the time it showed up."

"It's too specific," Tony disagrees, shaking his head. "This is an extraplanar creature, if your descriptions are correct. That means it had to be summoned to be here. Every time it came it had an objective, a mission. That it hasn't gone after a softer target or tried to target a specific group to negate your ability to stop it in the future makes me think it's a tool for someone either already on the scene in town as a power player or someone who wants to sit at the table."

Johnson frowns and studies Tony for a moment while he thinks.

"Who suffered the least from its attacks? Who lost the most? Who has the most to gain from the fallout of the attacks?" Tony asks, rhetorical questions, and shrugs as Johnson thinks those over. "I'm not here to fix your power structure, but if we pull this piece off the board, there may be a follow-up of some sort, something to think about and mention to your boss if he hasn't already thought about it."

"Who are you?" Johnson says, looking at Tony a slightly puzzled look on his face as he shakes his head slightly.

Tony smirks and shugs, "No one of consequence."

"Really?" Johnson says with raised eyebrows.

"Get used to disappointment," Tony replies with another shrug, and Maddie grins from beside him at the older man's discomfort.

Autumn practically storms into the security office under the cabin within the Bastion, where Richard is signing paperwork one of his senior security members is laying out for him. Contracts and arrangements for the upcoming offensive against the Mexica land grab to the southwest.

"You are letting them hunt a shoggoth? Are you out of your mind?" she says with an angry expression as she plants her staff and glares at him.

"Good morning to you, too, sis," he says evenly, placing his signature on another sheet. "I do agree it is a dreary morning, but I think the forecast is for clear skies by this afternoon, so we should make good time for our trip, as long as the tech holds, which Tony has assured me it will."

"Don't make me hit you," she nearly growls and he looks up from his paperwork with a frown.

"They are adults, remember?" he says, handing the files to the man waiting, who leaves while fighting not to smile where Autumn can see it, the sibling arguments between the two being constant amusement to the entire Horde. "They want to rid Alaska of a monster and make some money in the process."

"He doesn't need money," she corrects him with a scowl, stepping closer to him and frowning down at where he is seated.

"No, but getting rid of a monster that has killed the defenders of the civilian population of the area is a good cause," he points out, leaning back and looking at her evenly. "Or do you disagree with that? That they should ignore the destruction and death this thing has left in its wake and pass on by?"

She growls at him, "I hate when you do that."

" 'He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done'," Richard quotes, raising his eyebrow at her.

"Da Vinci, I know," she says with a sigh, looking skyward.

"You've got to let it go, sis," he says with a shake of his head as she starts pacing in front of his desk.

"I'm trying, but they're so young," she says, nearly whining. "I'm pushed into this role as High Priestess and leader of these folks in town and I just want to keep one part of my life. Just one."

"I can lie to you, or I can tell you the truth," he says with a sad frown. "Which one do you want?"

She stops and screws her eyes tightly shut while crossing her arms, staff still in hand as she sighs angrily before answering.

"Truth."

"It all slips away," he says with a sad shake of his head, his tone wistful. "It all changes, always, constantly. You grab the good, hold it while you can, but if you try to keep it unchanged, you'll be disappointed. You can't keep it the same, or it rots and dies."

"Not what I wanted to hear," she says sourly.

"You wanted the truth," he says with a shake of his own head and a shrug. "Look on the bright side, you still have Jocelyn to fuss over."

"God, she's growing up, too," she says with a sigh, dropping into the chair across the small table he's sitting at. "She keeps asking about offensive and defensive spells, it's getting harder to have her focus on the practical stuff first."

"She wants to be like you," Richard says with a chuckle, which gets him an angry glare from her, which causes him to raise his hands in mock surrender while laughing. "Don't be mad at me, be glad she hasn't been asking me when the next Agoge is so she can tryout."

"Oh, thank the goddess for that," Autumn says with feeling to the heavens. "She thinks going through that kind of thing is stupid and barbaric. She teases Maddie about it sometimes."

Richard snorts, "Yeah, I've heard it a few times. I just hope she learns to respect that kind of thing as she gets older, or it may blindside her."

"Was that a jab at me?" Autumn asks with an arched eyebrow at him.

"Not intentional," he says with a shake of his head. "We just think differently, and you sometimes discard my courses of action as a bad idea out of hand."

"You had a death curse leveled on you by a coven of witches!" she says at him, exasperated. "And you did it on purpose!"

"It was only seven witches," he says with a frown and a wave of dismissal. "You make it sound like I used a full coven drawing on a ley line."

"They called up the spirit of Gaia to suck the life out of you and reduce you to dust," she counters, shaking her head in frustration.

"You make it sound like it worked, which it didn't," he says with a shake of his own head and a pointed finger. "Besides, it probably would have taken out the other guy with me if it had worked."

"Probably! Probably!" she nearly screams, standing and waving her staff to threaten to hit him with it. "How have you not killed yourself by now?! How!?"

"Because if it's crazy but works, it may be crazy, but it works," he says calmly as he leans back and regards her with no concern for his own well-being.

"Aargh!" she says, frustrated and turning away. "This isn't a game, Rich! This is serious! Those two look up to you. They want to be like you, and it's going to get them killed."

Richard frowns at her and his tone changes and hardens, causing her to stop her angry pacing and look at him in surprise.

"No fucking kidding it isn't a game," he says from his still reclined position in his chair, though his body now hums with power and predator's grace. "They watched their enemy tear Luang to pieces based off the report I got. Their friend, a brother in arms that trained them, family member of the Xiangs and a mentor to them. They know this isn't a game, just as I do."

"Then why doesn't it seem like you take this seriously?" she asks, her tone tired and she shakes her head.

"I'm in charge of a lot of people, their safety and security, and if it looks like I'm worried about anything, it multiplies the stress and worry of everyone else," he says calmly. "And that does no one any good. Stress and worry won't help the situation. Have I taken risks? Yes, I have. Have I taken unnecessary risks? No I haven't."

"Death curse," she counters, shaking her head.

"What was the alternative?" he asks, tilting his head as she frowns in response to that. "You can't name another course that would have worked, considering the foe we faced. Even now with more knowledge that we didn't have at the time you cannot tell me what I could have done different and still won the day."

"It was a stupid idea," she says with no heat now, still shaking her head.

"But it worked, and because it was such a crazy idea it never occurred to him to think that I would use it, so he was unprepared for it," he argues.

"I still think it's a bad idea to let them take the same crazy risks," she says with a shake of her head.

"You make it sound like I didn't spend nearly an hour on the phone with them discussing their options and backup plans, half of which they hadn't considered," he chides her with a frown and shake of his head. "I'm not turning them loose to just wing it, even if you think that's what they or I do."

"I don't think you wing it," she concedes, shaking her head with a sigh. "I just can't believe you actually thought of some of the situations you may find yourself in. And then actually make up a plan for it. I mean, really, escape from India?"

"Are you glad I had a plan on the shelf, or not?" he asks, spreading his hands.

"Glad, obviously, just…" she lets the thought trail off with a sigh. "It's annoying."

"Well, I hope you're taking notes, High Priestess," he says with a gesture at her, to which she frowns.

"What does that mean?" she asks.

"I can't manage your people and mine, even if I wanted to, or you would let me, as they are your people," he says with a wave to indicate the magic users she now leads.

She frowns at him, then makes an angry sound and leans to the side, covering her face with a groan, "I'm going to have to start plotting and scheming now, aren't I?"

"If you want to stay vertical and keep your people safe, yes, you will," he says with a nod. "Just be glad you're not doing it from scratch without a lot of support, like I did."

"I'm told you set up Cat and then the Horde pretty well and in stride," Autumn says with a frown at him.

"I'd say ask Tasha and Mischa about the truth of it," he says with a shake of his head as he names off his wife and mistress. "It felt like I was building bricks out of sand without using straw or water. I may have built a pyramid, but it still feels brittle to me."

"I don't know…" Autumn says as she shakes her head in thought.

"If I'd had more time or more support I probably wouldn't have had that traitor in our midst," he says with a frown and angry expression as he recalls the incident. "Or had a challenger show up when the first opportunity arose and I was out of town. It's not as bad now, but I'm under no illusions that if I die, there's a serious possibility that this all dies with me."

"That's… strangely terrifying," Autumn admits as she considers what he's just said.

"And you haven't even read all the files I have accumulated on our opponents," he says with a nod. "Imagine if you read about all the different threats out there you don't know about."

"No, thank you," she says with a shake of her head and a small shudder at the thought. "I'd prefer to be able to sleep without more nightmares than I already have."

"I don't like to think of how often I have nightmares compared to pleasant dreams," Richard admits with a shake of his head, frowning. "If it weren't for the kids I'm pretty sure I'd have gone crazy by now."

Autumn frowns, looking guilty, "I probably don't help much, do I?"

"More than you think," he says with a small smile. "It's one of the reasons I enjoy when you flip out and berate me for stuff. Reminds me of when we were kids, the good moments of it, anyway."

"Keeps you humble and grounded," she says with an understanding nod.

"Well, I don't know about humble," he replies with exaggerated pride while putting his feet on the table and leaning back. "I am a Ranger, after all. We are pretty badass by default."

Autumn shakes her head and rolls her eyes, "You are insufferable. How did you ever convince Tasha to marry you?"

"Because I'm a Ranger, and we're awesome," he says with a chuckle. "Remember, humility is not a Ranger word."

"Obviously not," she says with a shake of her head, but with a smile now.

Tony sits on the roof of a small outlet mall on the east side of Anchorage, half the shops occupied with businesses, the rest empty with boarded and blocked windows, behind which hide shapeshifters and a dozen mercenaries hired from the local Guild. On the roof with him is Maddie, Ming, Bagira and Kris, the others with their flying mounts in a large parking lot a few miles away to the west. There is currently a Roc with a Mongol above them, the fliers cycling through watching as the time for the planned ambush approaches to give them eyes in the sky.

"I'm unhappy with this plan, and you aren't explaining yourself, and that bothers me even more," Maddie says from where she stands a couple yards from Tony, her arms crossed as she scowls at him.

She is dressed in loose cargo jeans, her vest with daggers over top of it with a quiver with her knife on the strap across her chest, gladius on her hip. Her dark purple hair is braided into a short rope behind her back, falling to the middle of her shoulder blades, a tactical hockey helmet in the same dark purple over it. Tony wears the full dark armor they had brought with them, his ghost mask tucked in his belt but not on, exposing his colorful scars to the fresh darkness that is still deepening around them with his weapons and quiver over top of it.

"Shoggoths are creatures unnatural to our realm, they are outsiders that need power and magic to stay here," he explains as he lays out a mix of different powders into a small circle he is preparing. "It can hide in a ley line, but cannot feed there, cannot heal damage, or grow stronger. Someone must give it sustenance, or it takes it from the living."

"Which is why you think someone is controlling it and sending it after targets," she agrees with a nod, frowning and trying to ignore how he knows this.

"Yes, but shoggoths exist also in the astral plane parallel to their physical bodies," he says with a raised hand, to which Ming nods from nearby in understanding.

"They feed better from Astral forms, so you intend to bring it here by projecting your own Astral form to lure it here," Ming says, then frowns. "But you must find it to lead it."

"Not if I amplify my projection to be detected from far away," he says with a tilt of his head as he finishes his circle which includes a half dozen Chinese characters within it. "It will practically summon it, though it will have to travel by mundane means to get here. If I do this right, it will be compelled to come and seek the source of the power pulsed out on the Astral plane it will detect. It will sense me if it's within a hundred miles."

"But doesn't that mean that anything else in that range will be able to sense you, too?" Maddie says with a frown, shaking her head. "I don't like it. There's other baddies out there we don't know about."

"Yes, but the shoggoth is the heavy hitter," Tony says with a nod. "And I'm pretty sure I can fend off the lesser ones fairly well until it shows up. Then I pop back into my body and we continue the plan."

"That is a bad plan," Maddie says with a shake of her head. "What if you need backup?"

"Ming?" he asks, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

"I had wondered why you asked me to prepare for an Astral projection tonight," she says, reaching into her own pack and starting to set out making her own circle. "I cannot amplify my presence, though, only make it seem less than it actually is."

"That's fine, you'll back me up if I need it, that's all," he says with a nod, turning back to Maddie. "See, I've got a battle buddy. We'll be fine. You three stay here and watch over us until we get back."

"I still don't like it," Maddie says with a sigh, stepping close to him and running a hand over his armor.

"That's only because you can't rush up and beat something with a bladed object of things go south," he says in a teasing tone, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him, which she responds to by wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders.

"That may have something to do with it," she concedes with a look to the side non-committally. "Emphasis on _may_."

Tony gives her a firm kiss, then they part and he turns to Ming, all business.

"Ready?" he asks.

"I am," she says as she glances over the simple circle she had made compared to Tony's more elaborate one.

Tony nods and steps over the edge of the circle he had made while holding his cloak up over it, then settling down to sit within it cross legged. Once settled he slows his breathing and closes his eyes while pushing his power into the circle, closing it, then slowly feeds the characters he had drawn with his power. Maddie and Kris glance at their surroundings on the watch for enemies, but are unable to notice the pulsing of colors within Tony's circle, each character throbbing a different color while Ming's is a simple green as she closes hers. After a few more moments Tony speaks a word low, barely audible and indiscernible even to the shapeshifters around him.

With a snap of power as he speaks the word he feels himself disconnected from his body and begins to feel a cessation of weight in a translucent version of his seated self. He pushes himself to his feet and walks through the circle around him with a buzzing sensation, almost bouncing with the movement as the gravity on this side of the veil is about two thirds of earth's. He turns to see Ming emerging from her own circle, her sword still at her side, though her other weapons and equipment gone, though she now wears traditional fighting gi of the Xiang Clan instead. He glances at himself and notes he is wearing simple training gi himself, though with DragenBien and his katana still in place, not left behind as his other weapons were.

"I am unsurprised they followed you here," Ming comments, gesturing to his katana. "They are powerful weapons and have a presence even here."

"I didn't know your sword was sufficiently spelled to carry over," Tony comments in turn as they walk towards the edge of the building's roof.

"It is a family blade, which Luang bore, and has been passed down for generations," she says, patting the slightly curved blade on her hip. "It is not as powerful as yours, but it is a presence here."

He nods and glances about, "Do you feel anything?"

"Not nearby," she says with a shake of her head. "But you have amplified your presence greatly, I cannot sense anything that is not as powerful in its own right nearby. I suspect that any lesser being will run from the power of your aura."

"And anything hungry that's close will likely take a pass at me," he says with a nod, folding himself into a cross legged position as he closes his eyes and stretches the perception of senses that have no root in the physical world. "Keep watch, I'm going to try and cast out my senses to see if I can detect its approach."

Maddie frowns as she stands on the roof with a bow in hand as she scans the darkness beyond, straining her senses to detect when an enemy may be approaches. She notices Kris and Bagira shifting posture and looks to the rear where she also hears another shapeshifter ascend to the roof via the back ladder. Wilson appears on the edge with a pair of sweats on, black and matching Johnson's people, with his daughter Lorelei trailing behind him in a rumpled pair of her own sweats on as well, two sizes too big. He pauses as he steps aside to let his daughter up while he looks at the two spellcasters in their circles, then walks to Maddie purposefully with a frown.

"What are they doing?" he asks, not glowering at her, but close.

"Drawing in your shoggoth," she says with a wave to the east. "Tony's projecting through the astral plane, and amplifying his signature. He'll look like a tasty morsel for an outsider like what you've described. Even if it isn't sent out, it won't be able to resist the temptation to feed directly from an astral form for more power. Especially someone with his percieved power level."

Wilson looks at Tony's cross legged form with a raised eyebrow, "I nearly didn't recognize him in that armor. A wise precaution when dealing with something more dangerous than he."

"We'll agree to disagree with the whole more dangerous argument," Maddie says with a smirk of her own, glancing out again towards the east.

"Johnson tells me you are involved with him," Wilson says, looking back at Maddie, but with a curious expression now, his daughter also looking at her, though with a frown on her pretty face.

"He is my mate," she says simply without looking back, continuing to scan the area. "You may have noticed the scent marker I carry, even though he does not. You know what that means."

"Sometimes it's wrong for one as young as you," Wilson remarks, looking to the east as well now. "A mating bond doesn't normally solidify until our early twenties."

"Regardless, he is my mate," she says with force in her voice and a slight flash of blue light in her eyes, and Wilson doesn't argue, but gives another glance at Tony's kneeling form, close eyed in the night.

"He is young, but older than you, looks like," he says with a glance at her. "He's what? Twenty, twenty two to your eighteen?"

Maddie smirks at the comment, pausing from correcting him as she considers the things Tony knows know that he did not when he left, the things he can do.

"He's about that," she says with a shrug. "Though I'm only due to be seventeen in a few months."

"You're sixteen and planned this?" Lorelei says with surprise as her father's eyebrows rise. "Father, this is a bad idea."

"The last person who took on my team and thought of us that way is dead," Maddie says with a hard frown at the older woman that would fit better on a person decades older, before she glances to the side in thought as she continues. "Though technically he was already dead, as he was a lich. We killed his constructs and then his body and phylactery."

"Where was this?" Wilson says, silencing his daughter with a glance.

"Taiwan," she says as she returns her gaze to the night and the distance. "There were a number of constructs we had to deal with, zombified abominations. The worst was probably the elephant/horse thing that really defies easy description."

"Elephant-horse?" Wilson asks, puzzled.

"There was a rhino head attached to, come to think of it," Maddie says, tilting her head in remembrance. "And the horse legs stuck outward from the body with other animal parts sewn to the ends of them. They were really more tentacle like than leg like, though I guess they were similar to spider legs since they had more joints in them. It was not pleasant to look at, much less kill."

"And you helped kill it?" he asks, frowning as he tries to picture the creature.

"I did my part," she says with a shrug, then nodding her chin at Tony. "He did the heavy lifting, really, even if Kris got in the killing blow."

"He gave me the layup," Kris says from where he sits on the other side of the two circles, not looking up from his own vigil. "He set us up for the kill, we couldn't have done it without him."

"And he is a normal human," Wilson ponders, looking again at an unmoving Tony.

"Well, in that he isn't a shapeshifter or a vampire or anything, yeah," Maddie admits. "He's just better at stuff than most."

"Aye, he must be," Wilson says with a thoughtful frown.

"Who drew up this plan?" Wilson asks, not disagreeing with his daughter's assessment about having a teenager plan an ambush against a creature that has eluded them for over a year.

"We did as a team," she says, looking again to the night. "More heads are better than one, and we each have things we do better than others. But Tony is the final say on the plan, and it's a good plan. If it was lacking, I am sure Johnson would have commented on it."

"He would have, as would I," Wilson says with a nod. "But I'm surprised that one of the youngest in your group is the leader. Especially the human one."

"My father was human before he became a shapeshifter," Maddie says flatly to the slight tone of scorn in Wilson's voice. "He pointed out during my training that we, shapeshifters, forget that our weakest form is that of our animal or half form."

"Our weakest?" Wilson says with a snort of disagreement. "We have claws and fangs, which we do not have in our human forms. We have more mass, more muscle and are stronger, faster in that form."

"True, but in animal form we cannot use guns, bows, weapons," she says without inflection, reciting a lesson from memory, imparted to her during the Agoge over and over again. "Most shapeshifters let their beast ride their minds when they shift and fight, even Alphas listen well to the animal, and not their human sides, even in hybrid form. There is a reason that man was the apex predator on the planet during both the last age of magic and the one of technology afterwards. It is why humans are the dominant law in all lands now, while the magic and tech fight for supremacy."

Wilson thinks this over, and as he does Maddie continues into the pause.

"In human form I can fire a gun, a bow, use my blades and a spear, extending my reach and ability," she says simply, gesturing to her bow and gladius as she does. "In hybrid form my claws only extend a few inches past my fingers, whereas my sword reaches two feet, my daggers a foot, and a bow made for my larger form can be fired a hundred yards or more, if I am trained to fire with my claws and not cut the string."

"You have a hybrid form?" Lorelei says with surprise. "You're too young for that."

"I have more than just a hybrid form, princess," Maddie says with a dark chuckle as she waves her fingers of her right hand, which shift and briefly show itself covered in black fur and tipped with inch long claws.

"I'd only heard of Curran and Michaels being able to do that, besides myself," Wilson says, narrowing his eyes to look at her more closely than he had before.

"It is not easy, and I can only maintain it for a few seconds at a time," she says as her hand shifts back to human. "But in a fight that is all I need, when using my hands instead of my blades."

"It looks like I should learn more of how you do things in your Horde," Wilson says, his tone more detached as other things slide into place in his head.

"You probably should," she says with a nod, looking at the night and any possible approaching enemies. "And consider that he told me to tell you all that I just did, rather than hide what we are capable of. I did not slip in the ignorance of youth, but told you on the orders of my father, to let you know what we are capable of."

Wilson thinks that over for a moment, then looks at Tony again, "And who trained him?"

"Were-tigers from the Horde, and the NeoVikings in our region," she says with a smile without looking at him. "I'm too proud to say that average humans could reach his level, but even one who reaches one tenth of his capability and potential is about as good as your average merc."

"He's that good?" Wilson asks, looking back at Maddie, who shrugs.

"You can judge that for yourself in the next few hours, when you get to see what we can do when this shoggoth of yours arrives," Maddie says.

Wilson frowns in thought then turns to the night as well, taking up a different point on the roof to watch from his daughter beside him as he does, her own expression angry and slightly puzzled.

" _Meeeeat_ ," echoes over the city of Anchorage and Tony's eyes snap open as he sits on the edge of the roof he is on, the sound reverberating deep past the bones he doesn't have in his astral form and shaking his soul instead.

"Did you hear that?" Ming asks from beside him, on her feet in the lighter gravity with a hand on her sword and her form outlined in subdued golden light, dull compared to Tony's radiant beams to amplify his presence to draw the shoggoth.

"Yeah, I heard that," Tony says, standing and looking to where he feels the sound came from, narrowing his eyes and his sight amplifying to take in the approaching silhouette. "Well, fuck…"

The approaching thing is on the horizon, a deep crimson light in the darkness, like molten lava, black and cracked with red light, forming a creature with a humanoid body, but with black feathered wings and a serpentine tail behind it, a pair of bull like horns on its head. The light slants from it, discerning it as a creature of the Astral plane, rather than a corporeal entity with a presence in the physical plane. It has no weapons in hand, but sports talons on its fingers over an inch long and tipped wickedly and Tony is brought back to the moment he first encountered a monster like this, seeing the similarities and cursing further under his breath at the revelation.

"This is bad," Tony says, staring at the approaching monster.

"What is it?" Ming asks, trying to see what he has seen, but the distance too great, many miles even in this environment, though the creature closes the distance quickly and will be at their location in minutes or less in their current perception of time, far less in the normal world.

"Remember the demon I killed when we tried to stop Baldur from being reborn?" Tony asks with a frown, pulling DragenBien from his back and elongating it to spear form, glowing with green colored power in this plane.

"But you killed it, did you not?" Ming says, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I destroyed its body, I didn't banish it in the traditional sense," Tony says with a frown as he takes a breath and centers his mind. "I haven't actually been on the Astral plane, technically, since it happened, so this is the first time it's had a chance to find me since the incident."

"That is… unfortunate," Ming says with a frown of her own as she pulls her sword from her hip, testing it's balance in this world as the figure grows larger and closer, flying faster than even its wings would normally allow, propelled with power and magic.

"Understatement of the day, maybe the week," he says as he hops down from the roof to the large parking lot where they had planned to ambush the shoggoth, none of the others in the ambush sensing through the astral plane. "Pop back into your body, tell them that no matter what happens in the kill zone before the shoggoth arrives that they have to wait until it's corporeal form arrives. There's likely to be a bit of fireworks and physical backlash from fighting with the demon on this plane. They have to stick to the plan until the target arrives."

"I will not be able to return until after it arrives to assist you," Ming comments, having landed beside him when he leapt in the lower gravity, turning to him with a frown of her own.

"Probably for the best, I'll have its full attention and you may get a chance at a surprise attack, in which case you should aim for its wings, as it knows how to use them well as another appendage in combat," he says, then nodding back up at the second story roof they'd hopped from. "Now go."

Ming frowns but doesn't argue further, knowing time is now a greater enemy than ever in the upcoming battle, closing her eyes and her astral form snaps back to her body as though propelled by a bungee cord. Tony turns back to where the figure of the demon looms, its eyes glowing red in this world, its toothy maw gaping wide as it spreads its arms and closes the distance towards him, an angry growl rumbling the ground beneath his incorporeal feet.

Maddie turns from her position as she senses Ming's breathing change and she opens her mouth to ask the older woman what is going on to cause her to return, especially without Tony, when the ground vibrates under her feet, causing her to stop with her mouth half open.

"Anthony will be clashing with the Astral form of the demon he slew during Baldur's ascent," Ming says as she opens her eyes in her circle, short and to the point. "There may be effects within the kill zone, but everyone is to wait until the shoggoth appears in physical form to launch the attack. Madelyn, that will be your call. I must return to aid him in his battle."

Maddie clenches her jaw in frustration and her inability to help her mate, especially since he will be fighting a creature that she knows is powerful nearly beyond imagining and knowing that him emerging victorious from such a battle is not guarantee by a long shot. But she fights down any argument, especially in front of the Wilsons, and simply nods at the older woman, who nods in return then closes her eyes and returns to the Astral plane.

"What does she mean by effects?" Wilson asks, turning to Maddie after the brief report.

"All stations hold your attacks until I give the word," Maddie says loudly into the night, all the positions around her with at least one shapeshifter in the group so she can relay such a message quickly.

Before she can respond to his question, the concrete in the parking lot below shudders as though struck by a heavy weight, cracks appearing within it and spiderwebbing out from two impact points three feet apart. A breath later one of the half dozen dual engine cars scattered lightly in the lot slides a dozen yards to the side as though t-boned by another vehicle, it's side crumpled in from an impact and glass shattering to fall around it.

"Effects like that," she comments with a glance at the parking lot again, speaking in a calm easy tone, though internally she is tearing herself apart because she can't help her mate.

Tony watches the demon land on bent knees a dozen yards from him in the middle of the lot, its arms spread and its face twisted into a rictus of hate, its eyes seething with loathing and rage. He doesn't wait for a witty remark or comment or declaration of war or intent, but immediately attacks with his six foot long spear, moving forward carefully and balanced, practiced but not expert in combat under the reduced feel of gravity in this plane of existence. He slows his perceptions, though not as much as he normally would, as time here is already dilated low compared to the real world, and he can only adjust it further by so much. His first wide arced attack missed, even when catching the monster relatively flat footed, the demon leaning back to avoid it then leaning forward and sweeping one claw and wing forward to counter attack.

Tony dodges the claw and dives into a roll to duck the following wing, which slams into a four door sedan car in the lot, causing it to slide yards away as though his by a speeding truck. He rises to his feet with a spin and slashes again with the spear, causing his opponent to turn and lean back to avoid the dragon talon tipping the spear, a snarl on its face as it does. Before attacking again it jumps to its left and turns in the air while bringing its wings before it, interposing them between itself and a lance of fire originating from the rooftop Ming stands upon, thrusting a palm forward from which the fire originates. The demon raises its right fist before it in an uppercut jab and a gust of ethereal wind rises up and throws Ming into the air, violently tumbling her from her perch and she dwindles to a receding figure in the sky.

"You will pay for your transgression, mortal," the demon snarls as he turns back to Tony, slapping his hands before him with a thunder of sound that drives Tony to his knees with the force of it.

The demon chants and waves his fingers in a complex pattern before him, and with a rush of power, completes the spell he formed in the breath of time he had stunned Tony.

"You cannot escape me now, Anthony Michael Hessberg Junior," the demon says with a now salacious grin. "I will break your spirit, then drink your soul as it suffers the insanity of the damned, one drop at a time."

Tony swallows on his non-existent, yet somehow dry mouth as he takes in the fact that the demon has his full name, something that has enormous significant in the magical community, though he should be thankful the demon doesn't have a physical form or it would be infinitely worse. Not to say that he isn't in dire straights as it is, since he seems to be cut off from being able to return to his body so long as the demon is within close enough proximity to his physical form. And that there is likely a shoggoth making its way here in its comparatively glacial speed compared to how he and his current opponent are experiencing time compared to the physical plane of existence.

"Well," he replies to the monster, still in a guard stance with his spear in front of him. "You know my name, what shall I call you?"

"Master will do," the creature says, putting its fists in front of it with locked elbows, then pulling them apart while chanting, a sword of fire emerging between his fists sized for his eight foot tall frame.

"Yeah, that ain't gonna work," Tony says with a shake of his head and a snort of a laugh to help him relax before the upcoming fight. "I think only one person really qualifies for that title, and I wouldn't even let her know that. She's got a big enough head as it is."

The demon lunges forward with a slash low with his fiery blade while his shoulders stay level and his wings sweep into the space above the blade, but the reduced gravity allows Tony the ability to leap better than in the mortal plane, allowing him to leap higher than he normally would. He rises over the attacks to his left, turning and thrusting down with the spear to attack down at his opponent, who manages to twist and interpose his full wing between his black and glowing red skin. The black feathers deflect the blade, seeming inpenetrable, though a few flecks of down seems to chip off from the god forged weapon, and Tony bounces a bit higher in the air and twists to land on his toes and rolling to the side to regain his feet as he turns to face his opponent who has turned and is already accelerating across the dozen yards separating them.

He doesn't panic, but maintains his calm and continues to fight patiently against his opponent, ignoring that time is against him, because sooner or later the shoggoth will arrive, and he may be battling two opponents at once.

Ming fights for breath that her Astral form doesn't actually need as the ground disappears below her quickly, stunned by the force of the blow she had taken and has sent her skyward. She collects her thoughts and reaches down her connection to her body to put her back in the normal plane of existence, but her tether is blocked, she cannot leave. She blinks as she continues to tumble in the air, westward as she arcs down towards the earth again, the Pacific ocean now below her and she considers how to land in her current form.

Maddie tries not to wince as the car below which had already taken a hit from what she presumes was the demon in the Astral plane has it's hood smashed and the engine beneath it ruptures, spilling enchanted water below it's now flat tires.

"Has he done this before?" Wilson asks as one of the light poles bends then is severed as though by an intense heat, the pole cut at a slight angle at about six feet from the ground.

"I haven't seen him fight on the Astral plane, if that's what you're asking," she admits, still scanning the distance for the approach of the shoggoth. "I can't project there, myself, I'm not inclined magically. I have seen him fight other monsters and shapeshifters, though. He has reflexes that would surprise you, I think, and his endurance is outstanding, especially for a human."

"This Astral demon he's fighting," Lorelei say with a flinch as a long gash of melted concrete appears in the lot below. "What did he do to make it so angry with him?"

"After we defeated a Cajun mech-wizard who had sold his soul to Beezlebub for vengeance and failed, the man took his own life as a sacrifice to summon a greater demon from hell," Maddie says with a frown. "Tony was stuck in a circle with it, fought it and blew it in half using explosive arrowheads."

The older woman blinks at the short explanation, "A demon from hell? Like from a hell dimension?"

"Whatever you want to call it," Maddie says with a shrug, pointedly not paying attention to the wreck that is quickly becoming of the parking lot below. "We thought we'd seen the last of it, that was earlier this summer. But it must have managed to wedge its essence into the Astral plane before it died. Apparently it took the defeat personally."

"Will he be okay? With just him and the were-tiger?" she asks, not really concerned but curious.

"He has better weapons with him than he had then, and he's picked up a few tricks," she says with a confident nod she doesn't entirely feel but needs to project. "He'll be fine. I don't know if he can kill it in its present condition, but he should be able to stall until our trap is sprung, I think. He doesn't have to deal with physical exhaustion on the other side, only mental strain, and he's got that in spades."

She glances up at the sound of a short shriek, almost jumping in surprise as one of the Mongols' Rocs drops from the sky and lands on the back edge of the building. Wilson has turned in a defensive crouche to the large bird of prey, and Lorelei actually shifted into wolf form at the surprising sound.

"It comes, maybe two miles out," says one of the warrior hand maidens. "I go to swap out with Soufe, and we will prepare to maintain coverage and watch from above. Signal if you wish us to attack."

The bird flaps from the back of the building and dwindles quickly away to where the other mounts are at, and Maddie can see two others take off from the distant landing area.

Tony ducks and rolls under another flaming sweep of the demon's sword, having nearly lost track of time as he continues to dodge, dip, duck, dive and otherwise avoid being hit by the deadly flames or the destructive attacks from the wings, tail or talons of his opponent. He thanks god that he had trained so intensively during his time on the mountain, even if he never attained master status in the Astral plane, as his familiarity is allowing him to fight defensively and smartly against his larger and stronger enemy. Unfortunately, he senses another presence moving towards them, and he knows that his time is nearly up as down the block a large blob like creature rolls into view.

The shoggoth is larger than described, or at least seems that way as amoeba like appendages stretch out from its body for locomotion as it thrusts them into the ground and rolls forward. There is no discernable head or center of mass as the creature lumbers forward, a dozen mouths in view as he moves, each designed differently, varying from looking like a shark's maw or a lupine set of jaws and even some styled like spiders' and scorpions'. Tony notes it moves relatively slowly to his slowed perception of time on this plane and knows that he is running out of time remaining to fight the demon before the shoggoth arrives. Then again, that is kind of the plan, such as it is.

"Hope you don't mind, but I invited a guest," Tony says after flipping over an attack and swings the blade of DragenBien at the demon, who leans back to avoid the blow.

The demon snarls and pushes after the attack, though Tony continues to fight defensively and giving ground in a generally circular pattern as the shoggoth comes closer and closer to the lot they are fighting in. The demon stops attacking as the shoggoth crawls into the parking lot, over the sidewalk and humping over a car in the physical world, the mouths open and shrieking a horrible chorus that would make his bones creak if he had any in this plane. The demon looks at the outsider, not turning from Tony, his flaming sword in hand, then leaps into the air and bats its wings as an appendage snaps out where it had stood a moment ago. The ground crumbles in the position it once stood on, a number of eyes following the demon's presence upwards, another tasty morsel in the eyes of the extra-dimensional monster.

"This is far from over, mortal," the demon snarls as he idly flaps over the shoggoth, tendrils snapping upwards in an attempt to snag it which the hell creature dodges from side to side. "I am patient, and you are stuck here until I deem it so."

"Not really," Tony says as he backs up to the building his body is on, the shoggoth following him and it's tendrils snapping upwards towards the demon as it does, inadvertently keeping it from darting after Tony as he leaps to the top of the building.

He reduces the size of DragenBien to that of a bow and he pulls back and draws on the string within the Astral plane, pushing his will into focus and a line of multicolored energy manifesting on the string as an arrow. He releases the string and the arrow darts out and strikes the demon in the left shoulder, causing the monster to howl in anger and pain. The arrow had lanced completely through and dark black smoke erupts from the wound, the equivalent to blood in this plane, and the demon falls awkwardly to the ground. The shoggoth has stopped following Tony and now snaps appendages up on the demon and begins to pull it towards its mouths while tearing and gnashing into it with claws and teeth on the limbs. The demon howls in anger and savagery as it turns its flaming sword upon the now closing predator, cutting a limb from where it grabs its leg and following through to attack it with all the natural and augmented weapons at its disposal.

Tony pulls his will around him and reaches out to draw a trio of symbols in the air in front of him that glow with golden light, and he chants a short spell of nullification. The oppression of the demon's spell that had held him unable to return to his body snaps away like a veil lifted from his senses and he reaches down the line to his body and wills himself back to the physical world and away from the Astral plane, gasping while opening his eyes only a moment before Ming does the same within her own circle.

Maddie watches the shoggoth lash out with its appendages at something she can't see, she guesses its Tony or something in the Astral plane she can't detect. But it means that the creature isn't paying attention to her or the others waiting in the storefronts with weapons loaded and ready to unleash upon it with fire and destruction. It moves closer to her building and she is about to give the order to open fire when the shoggoth suddenly stops in the center of the lot and does something weird with its tentacles, wrapping around an invisible object and pulling it down from above it. One of the tentacles blazes as though burnt and is severed from the body, but is still wrapped around something and continues to writhe even when separated. She opens her mouth to give the order to fire when Tony gasps awake from behind her, followed quickly by Ming.

"Standby to fire," he says firmly from where he sits, blinking his eyes and reaching out to break the circle he sits in, then rising and walking to where Maddie is a dozen yards away at the edge.

"What is going on down there?" she asks as he joins her, jabbing her chin at the invisible opponent the shoggoth is wrestling with.

"Why fight when I can have my enemy do the work for me?" he says with a shrug as he looks down at the writhing and contorting shoggoth. "I give it a few minutes before the demon breaks free or the shoggoth sucks it down. Either way, we save ourselves the trouble of expending ourselves in dealing the damage ourselves."

"Clever," Wilson says with a nod of agreement. "You are resourceful for one as inexperienced as you are."

"I may not have the mileage of some of my seniors, but the miles themselves can be rougher than you'd think," Tony says before Maddie is able to snap off an angry retort in his defense. "And as I'm often reminded by my friends, I don't heal as quickly as you do. So I take every advantage I can, when I can."

"If you ain't cheatin', you ain't trying," Maddie says with a snort of amusement and a nod of agreement.

"How are you feeling?" Tony asks, glancing over his shoulder at where Ming is joining them.

"I was flung far off shore and was making my way back when you dropped his interference," she says as she looks past them to the roiling figure of the shoggoth below them. "My thanks, Anthony."

"No problem," he says, watching the monster below as its tendrils stretch upwards, apparently losing its prey in the Astral plane. "And it looks like it's time for us to start this party. On my signal, unleash hell!"

He shouts the last and pulls an arrow from his quiver while pulling DragenBien from his belt and shifting it to a bow, seating it and sighting down at the damaged car in the lot beside the shoggoth. As the last tendril drops from its grip on the invisible prey it had tried to consume in the Astral plane, Tony fires. The arrow lances out the fifty yards to the puddle of enchanted water and flares with burning flash of magic, not a dragonbone arrow, but magical nonetheless. The enchanted water flares and erupts with multicolored flames three feet high, causing the shoggoth to flinch back from it in surprise and a shriek of anger and pain. As it rears back in a humping motion the fronts of the boarded up stores fall apart and arrows and glowing projectiles lance out at it.

Burning and exploding impacts strike the monster, though many miss, but most hit the target solidly. The shoggoth flinches and reels from the assault, its new enemy hitting it from the shadows and mostly unseen. Its cry is painful to hear and Tony winces as the thing roils and rolls away from the ambush site as fast as a normal human can sprint, leaving churned concrete behind it as it retreats back the way it came to the east.

"That was astonishingly easy," Wilson says with a frown as he watches the creature roil away into the darkness. "The last time it took us hours to get it to run, once we arrived on scene."

"It seems that way, when you have the right mix," Maddie says with a distracted tone, quoting Richard. "The Rocs are up following it," she says to Tony, who is looking upwards and nods in agreement as he sees the pair of raptors in the sky above them, stars winking out as they are eclipsed by them.

"Alpha, I would appreciate it if you would have your wolves start following it," Tony says politely, turning to Wilson. "My team and I will mount up on our fliers and when you lose the trail, we'll lead you back onto it."

"Agreed," he says with a nod, then sheds his human form to turn into a monstrously huge wolf between one blink and the next, raising his head and howling a hunting cry into the nearly clear sky.

Howls return to him and he leaps from the building to the ground below and lopes after the shoggoth, closing the distance but also knowing to keep space between him and prey to allow it the illusion of escape. Maddie turns and whistles a complex series into the sky and a moment later Trixie swoops over their position, flapping and landing in the ruined lot below, he wind from her wings extinguishing the fire that is dying down now. Tony takes hold of the rope on the edge of the roof and uses it to slide down to the ground floor, while Maddie and the other shapeshifters simply step off and land on bent knees.

When Tony reaches the ground the three Ptactors that had followed Maddie have landed as well, and the shapeshifters are mounting them all as he trots to Trixie and Maddie reaches down to pull him up into the saddle behind her. He clips the strap on his belt to the saddle arrangement to his side then slaps Maddie twice on the thigh, causing the wyvern to leap into the air and beat its wings to gain altitude. Tony clenches his thighs and holds Maddie about the waist as they rise higher, and once the mount settles into a glide, he reaches down and pulls his mask from his belt and pulls its ghostly image over his face, concealing his ethereally colored scars from the world as the follow where the Mongols follow their prey.

They catch up to the giant eagles quickly and Tony glances over the sides of the wyvern while activating his charm to let him see better in the magical spectrum. The lights shift and he can pick out he shoggoth easily, no longer bleeding or trailing anything while it moves as fast as a horse at a fast trot. It has lost mass, as well, about half of what it had been when it arrived in the ambush area, the enchanted fire attacks having done their job and hurt it well.

"Eleven o'clock," Tony says into Maddie's ear. "Three miles ahead."

"I'll keep us parallel," she says, banking Trixie to the right slightly to let them keep eyes on it and circle, Tony signaling to the others to have one stay with them and the other two to circle the opposite direction over their quarry, putting Ming and Kris together while Bagira stays in their wake.

They follow their quarry, though calling it prey is not giving it justice for the fierceness of the outsider, having nearly taken down the astral form of the demon before they had unleashed so much fire upon it. Tony glances back from time to time and can see some shapes flitting among the trees, the shapeshifters prowling along in the wake of the creature. After twenty minutes the monster reaches the narrow river inland of the city among the forests, disappearing from normal sight below its waters. Tony's magic enhanced sight continues to see it however, as it undulates along the bottom of the stream uphill, against the current at the pace of a fast walk for a human.

He guides Maddie with nudges to keep the creature in his sight over the left shoulder of Trixie as the circle about a thousand feet up in the night. They follow for over an hour as it follows the bed of a deep and strong stream feeding the river and heads further uphill, the shapeshifters below looking up and following where the fliers are circling at. Two hours after the shoggoth had run from the ambush it emerges from the water and rolls and pulls itself up the shore and into the trees once more, then disappearing into a fold in the earth. As they continue to circle, Tony can discern it is a cave mouth and he signals for them to land in a slightly open field about a mile and a half away, signaling the others to do likewise. They land among the short brush and handful of saplings in the field half the size of a football field, the fliers barely fitting together on it and looking at the encroaching trees on the edge with suspicious eyes.

Tony and the others dismount after landing, the riders all assembling near Trixie as Maddie slides to the ground next to where Tony stands and looks at the darkness around them with his enhanced sight.

"The shapeshifters should be here soon," he says and stops as the Ptactors and Trixie suddenly become even more tense as the sound of low growls emerge from the darkness of the trees, then a howl from out of sight, deeper and more ominous than that of a werewolf's, something he hadn't thought possible.

"That's bigger than a werewolf," Maddie says as she turns and narrows her eyes at the darkness, the group all circling around, back to back and watching their surroundings by reflex.

As if to confirm her words a trio of dark gray shapes dart from the treeline and speed towards one of the Ptactors only ten yards from the trees. Tony turns with bow in hand and reaching for his quiver while studying the large, fast shapes as they dance around the flier, wolves even larger than the largest werewolf he has ever seen, each weighing in at well over two thousand pounds and six feet tall at the shoulder. Tony selects a blue fletched arrow and fires, figuring that the monsters would shrug off mundane arrows due to their size, and fires at the lead of the over-sized and primitive looking wolves as they start to bite and nip at the mounts. His shot lands as the leader bites the flank of the Ptactor, tearing out a chunk of meat in its jaws, and instead of freezing in place or having a small area frozen the arrow penetrates to the fletching with no other effect apparent.

The others of the group are reacting, Tony having slowed his perceptions as he fired and studied their opponent, and they start to move towards the wolves, another three exiting the treeline. The other three attack another Ptactor as the first one beats its wings and lifts skyward to escape the ambush of predators as large as itself and meant to fight on the ground. Trixie screeches towards the wolves as they dart around the Ptactors, keeping the smaller fliers between them and the larger creature in the clearing.

"They are immune to cold!" Tony shouts as he draws a yellow fletched arrow for shock, saving his flaming arrows for the shoggoth, which is not yet defeated.

The arrow drives home on the front shoulder of the lead wolf, causing it's thick and low brow ridge to twitch in pain, the brow ridge of it and the others sporting short ridges of bone to protect their eyes. It reaches back with its jaws and pulls the arrow out, tossing it aside and then loping in a circle as its eyes fixate on Tony, having identified the source of its pain. Tony pulls another arrow from his quiver and calmly waits for a good shot to present itself as the lead wolf circles with two others dancing around it as they dart amongst the mounts and his team as they spread out in pairs to try and defend the remaining Ptactors with Trixie. He sees an opening, draws and fires while jogging towards the leader to close the distance, and the yellow fletched arrow skips off the thick ridge bone as the monster twitches its head to deflect the shot.

Tony closes with the creature, which has altered its course to close directly with him, the greatest perceived threat of the group except Trixie in its hunter's mind. Tony shifts DragenBien to its compact form and tucks it to the small of his back and as the monstrously sized Dire Wolf turns and snaps its massive jaws at him he draws his golden katana in a flash of movement in an upward slash. The cut arcs up with a spray of blood through the muzzle of the beast as it tries to abort the attack, but Tony had shifted his own feet and momentum to close the distance, slicing upwards into its face and skull. The wolf staggers back, shaking its head and spraying blood from its nearly severed muzzle and damaged left eye. Trixie has fixated on the panicked movement and her huge jaws snap down from its long neck and latch onto the Dire Wolf's neck from above, pulling the largest of the pack from the ground as she plants the claws on her wing joints and tosses the body back and forth like a terrier swinging a rat.

At the death of their pack leader the other wolves run from the clearing, leaving the other two of their number that have been wounded and crippled on the field. Trixie tosses the dead alpha to the ground with a heavy and ground shaking thud that is felt by all those in the small clearing. Tony barely feels the shudder of the ground as he is lying on the ground gasping for breath, having run hard into the shoulder of the alpha, the mass and momentum of the monster more than his human physique is able to easily shake off, no matter the amount of training. He is still blinking away spots in his vision when Maddie pulls his mask from his face and he finally gasps air into his lungs, the breath having been knocked from the force of the impact.

"I-I'm fine," he gasps. "Perimeter," he breathes, and Maddie nods to Ming and stays at his side while he catches his breath and reaches down to catalogue the pain in his side.

"Broken?" Maddie asks in a low tone, her eyes narrowed at him.

"No, it was starting to pull back when I hit," he says in a low tone as well, feeling his side through the armor. "Bruised, maybe a stress fracture. I can't hear the difference right now, not until my heart rate slows."

Maddie narrows her eyes at him, "You can _hear_ a stress fracture?"

Tony pauses in checking his injury, glancing at her with a frown, "Yeah, in anyone in five feet of me or so, if it's relatively quiet, I'm not stressed and no one is moving."

" _Hear_ it?" she asks, her tone slightly sharper, though still relatively low.

"I'm pretty sure you'd be able to hear it in your own body, with practice," he says, not expanding on his own ability.

"We are going to have a discussion on just how much practice you've had on hearing the sound of broken bones in your body _later_ ," she says with narrowed and angry eyes.

"Uh, yes dear?" he says with a slight smile, reaching over and taking his mask from her and pulling it on. "I didn't see anything in the files on those things. You?"

"Nothing local, it has to be a special creature for this guy to guard his base," she says, looking around the dark field, only Trixie and one other Ptactor remaining, the other pair having flown off.

He rises to his feet with a wince hidden by his mask and walks to where Trixie is pulling a leg off the Dire Wolf Alpha's body to eat, studying it for a moment before shaking his head.

"Great, I'm in Alaska with Dire Wolves guarding my enemy's stronghold. What next?" Tony says, glancing at where the others stand guard in human form except Kris, who is in his animal form of a grizzly bear.

"Winter is coming," Kris says in a growl from his muzzle, everyone turning to look at him with a frown.

His shaggy shoulders shrug, "It had to be said."

"How long until Wilson and the others get here?" Tony asks, glancing back at the direction of the city.

"They were the vanguard, and we may have some of them arrive in the next ten minutes, but he rest of the mercs and others we brought in will be another half hour or more, judging by the terrain we passed," Maddie says, having studied the ground they passed while Tony had been watching the shoggoth.

"That's too much time to let him either run away or set up some sort of defense," Tony says with a shake of his head, looking skyward where a pair of outlines show the Mongols herding the fleeing Ptactors back towards the clearing. "Signal for them to hold the clearing with the Ptactors and their own mounts. The rest of us are going after the bad guy."

"How is it that it works out that we have to go after this thing solo?" Maddie mutters under her breath as they send up a flare for the fliers above them and Tony motions Kris into the lead in his huge bear form.

"Just lucky, I guess," Tony answers with a shrug, following behind Bagira, Maddie at his side and Ming bringing up the rear.

"It was a rhetorical question," Maddie tries not to growl, and Tony ignores her as he trots to keep up with the long gait of the were-bear as he quietly lumbers to the cave opening and after the shoggoth.

Fifteen minutes later they are at the mouth of the cave and Tony has them halt as he peers at it with narrowed eyes that glow with enhanced sight from the amulet he wears. He holds his hand over the opening after taking off his gloves, his left extended a bit further as he concentrates on the sensations there specifically. After a few moments he draws his hands back and puts his thin leather gloves back on and nods to Ming to take the lead from Kris, who falls back to the rear of the group.

They descend into the darkness and after less than a minute of walking Ming has stopped with her hand barely raised as her eyes shift left and right, searching the darkness. She signals that the light level is too low ahead and she can't see, that either they produce light on their own, go ahead blind, or wait for reinforcements. Tony grimaces unseen beneath his mask, thinking and deciding that though he would be able to continue as though uninhibited, it would be best for the group if he were not the only one able to act in the dark. He reaches down and pulls the katana from his side an inch from the scabbard, the blade beneath glowing with a golden light that illuminates the darkness of the cave. With the blade mostly sheathed the light is not bright or blinding, lending a soft glow of light that allows them to be able to proceed without being too obvious, or so Tony hopes.

The rock and dirt floor angles down gently and curves to the left, northward, and then around and around as they continue to slowly prowl forward. The curve of the cave has likely brought them back under where they started in a spiral as they continue to move steadily forward for a half hour, continuing to smell the shoggoth's trail and marks of its travel. At an hour after entering the tunnel it narrows abruptly and they pause with heads low when Kris huffs from the rear, unable to fit in his larger animal form. Tony signals for the were-bear to hold the position and wait for the wolves to come, then shift to human afterwards so he isn't alone and vulnerable after the shift, and allowing the rest of the party to continue.

Ten minutes later Tony is bent over as they walk down the passage to prevent his head from hitting the top, and the unworked and rough stone shifts into improved and shaped stone that widens out over thirty yards to a ceiling twelve feet high and smooth walls ten feet across. They pause to assess the area as they transition and spread out slightly, Tony at the rear of the group with Ming in front with Bagira slightly to her right and behind her, Maddie between and behind them with Tony to the rear right. Tony can see further than the others and can see that the corridor extends fifty yards straight ahead and ends in a heavy iron door with a square at head level a foot across and high. He gestures them cautiously forward and they stop as Ming sees the door for herself and both she and Tony activate their magical sight to detect magic.

 _Ward,_ Ming signals, tilting her head as she studies it, then indicating she can have it down in five minutes or less. Tony signals for her to do so, and the others all move forward with her as she begins to work magic to bring down the defenses on the door. Tony is listening intently as she works, detecting a low murmuring through the door and sensing an open area on the far side, a chamber of some sort. The distance too far with too many variables to be able to hear any normal breathing of a person.

The ward drops with a sensation of popping ears and a flash of dark purple light, at which Maddie and Tony lunge forward as Ming shuffles back from the door. Maddie has her dragonbone daggers out and cutting through the hinges on the left, while Tony has drawn his kurki from his thigh and slices down between the door and jamb while filling the blade with magic. Both of them slice through the metal impeding their cuts with little difficulty and the door leans forward and slams heavily on the far side of the door.

The small party dash past the funneling effect of the door and spread out slightly on the other side to make them more difficult targets while taking in the chamber beyond. The room is twenty yards across and ten yards or so wide, rectangular with a high ceiling that disappears into darkness and dimly perceived stalactites above. Each wall has a door identical to the one they came through, and on the far side is a man wearing a dark red robe with the cowl drawn up hiding his face, a ward flashing up around him as they enter. But between them and the robed figure is the shoggoth, contained in its own ward about three yards across with dark purple colored symbols circling it and containing it.

"Release!" the figure shouts, a male voice that sounds like he had been screaming or shouting for hours and his voice raspy and hoarse as a result.

The ward holding the shoggoth drops and the creature surges like an ameoba towards the four as they spread out further and draw weapons and prepare to attack.

"Ming, get the master with Maddie!" Tony shouts while pulling a red fletched arrow from his quiver and firing it at the undulating shoggoth while backing towards the corner to put distance between him and a reaching pseudopod of teeth and claws.

The two Agogites run in opposite directions at angles and leap high towards the wall, running up them slightly then jumping to land on the other side of the shoggoth and on either side of the man in the defensive ward in a maneuver that would make Jackie Chan proud. Tony's arrow causes the appendage reaching towards him to flare with enchanted fire upon striking the base of it, and the shoggoth stops and spasms in place as a shriek of pure rage and horror shakes his bones and stuns everyone in the room into immobility for a breath. Tony has shaken off the effects of the sound with his ears still ringing and affecting his situational awareness but is aware enough to see the surge of the monster just before it throws itself bodily at him. Far faster than something that size should be capable of, the mass of muscle, claws, teeth and cat slitted eyes hurls itself across the dozen yards separating them.

Tony is fast for a human, but still only has human strength and is unable to jump over the monster which still the size of a medium sized pickup truck and likely a few tons in weight. Tony darts to his left, away from the wall that would pin him in place and darts as fast as he can to his left while shifting DragenBien into spear form and thrusting it at the shoggoth. The greater mass of the monster means it can't shift its direction as nimbly as Tony can, but it still reaches out a trio of pseudopods at him as the main mass of the creature narrowly missed Tony's shoulder and leg. Tony spins the spear in a parry, keeping two of the appendages from reaching him and lands a short thrust in the third as he spins and dodges away.

His movement halts as the spear is jerked in his hand, the stabbed limb having flowed over the haft of the spear and refusing to let go. Tony watches for a pair of heartbeats as the mass of the monster oozes a half inch further up the shaft of the weapon and he releases it rather than be pulled in closer to the shoggoth. As he lets go Bagira darts forward with her own sword drawn, a low green flame coating its surface as the panther-were uses her enhanced strength and speed to cut a trio of deep slashes into the mass facing her. The monster shudders at the attack and she lunges and cuts off the short appendage that has formed around the end of Tony's spear, cutting it off completely, though the meaty mass continues to hump over the end of the weapon.

The lunge places her a hand's breadth too close, though, and the shoggoth lances out a pseudopod low and catches her lead foot in a wolf like jaw. Tony can hear the snapping of the shin and ankle in the creature's maw as he draws the katana from his hip, its golden light practically blinding in the low light of the room that had previously only been lit by a dozen sconces with low torches in them. The shoggoth recoils at the light, dragging Bagira with it, the shapeshifter reaching for her dropped sword in the attack and missing picking it up by a few inches. Tony can hear shouting from Maddie, Ming and the man across the room but trusts his friends to handle themselves as he advances on the outsider with his sword cutting the air before him while he advances.

Maddie lands a pair of yards from the robed man, her feet well spaced and balanced as she holds her nearly foot long daggers to her sides, ready to strike. The man's head turns back and forth between her and Ming, who has landed opposite her on his other side, making it impossible to watch both of them at the same time. Ming has pulled a hand from a large pouch on her hip and tosses a trio of small spheres at the man, what Maddie knows are centimeter wide spheres of marble, meticulously carved with runes and enchanted by the older woman. The man has turned his attention to the flung marbles and reaches under his own robe and as the first marble strikes his ward it shudders and thrums with power. The second marble strikes and the ward breaks, sending the man staggering to the side and towards the door on what had been the far side of the room as he throws a half dozen small objects at Ming in response to her attack.

Maddie leaps forward and pounces on the man's exposed back once the ward is down, her right dagger slicing diagonally to catch him at the upper shoulder from behind. The man has turned his stagger from the dropping of the ward into a tumble and roll, though, and her dagger cuts through flowing cloak and only slight resistance, a glancing blow at best. The man rises to his feet smoothly, leaving a smear of blood on the ground as he does, a practiced move as he spins and throws another item at the ground while jumping backwards, away from the follow through slash she levels at him. The slash catches more cloth and again meets resistance at the apogee of its arc, and blood flying towards the wall as a result.

The small ball of glass he threw, however, shatters as it strikes the ground less than a foot from Maddie's lead foot as she continues to follow her quarry, and suddenly a sticky mass of a gelatinous sludge has spread out, covering her right leg up to the knee. Her forward momentum halts abruptly and she jerks painfully to a stop and narrowly avoids falling down as a result, windmilling her arms to remain upright. The cloaked figure's back has hit the far door, and he scrabbles with the deadbolt on it while still facing Maddie and where she can see Ming is tangled up in a similar kind of sludge that has covered her right arm and pinned her to the wall. A flash of golden light and a glance over her shoulder shows Maddie that Tony is wading into the shoggoth and is stilly occupied.

When she looks forward again, the man has pulls a rod from his belt while opening the door and with a murmur and a word of power flashes a small cone of flame from the end of the instrument. She raises her arms in a feeble attempt to halt the flames, but it only strikes briefly on the ground, then in a more sustained blast against the wall before the man slams the iron door closed behind him as he runs away. Maddie snarls and turns to the stuff holding her leg in place, slashing at it with her dragonbone daggers, and though slicing across neatly, the material just oozes back into itself and remains. She turns and watches as Ming is working at pulling some items from her belt left handed in an effort to try and spell the material off of her.

Frustrated and angry at coming so close she looks back to Tony, where he is slashing methodically at the shoggoth, the golden blade shining like a small sun as it cuts, leaving blazing swaths of flame where it touches the monster, the creature foreign to this plane of existence and its presence inimical the pureness of the weapon. After only a dozen breaths, Tony stands over the burning remains of the creature, Bagira levering herself to her feet using his spear and keeping off of her wounded leg. Tony turns and jogs over to Maddie and lays the sword's blade against the sludge on her leg with a murmur, pushing power into the blade.

"Get Ming, I'll get it," she says with a shake of her head as she sheathes the daggers and pulls her gladius from her back, having briefly forgotten the flaming blade.

He turns and does just that as she applies her own flaming weapon to the binding material, careful not to burn herself in the process.

"What happened?" Tony asks, the golden blade slowly melting and dissolving the stuff binding Ming to the wall.

"He reacted fast to the ward dropping," she says with a frown, trying not to let her emotions cloud her perceptions or her report, locking her mindset into that of the Agoge and keeping her inner wolf at bay. "Had this stuff prepped to throw and stop pursuers. I did manage to tag him twice, though, a narrow cut on his back right, another across his chest."

"Any residue?" Tony asks, looking at the door and his eyes studying to find any trace.

"He threw some fire around as he ran, scorching his blood," she says with a shake of her head.

"Why didn't he hit you, then?" he asks, a frown in his voice as Ming pulls herself from the wall and Maddie finishes freeing herself as well.

"Probably surprised we managed to follow his monster and close in on him so quickly, would be my guess," Ming says as she rolls her right arm, then moving to Bagira and kneeling by her foot. "This is tainted, it will not heal until it is purified. It will rot in the next few minutes if we do not treat it now."

"Then we treat it," Tony says with a nod, indicating Ming to go ahead as Bagira lowers herself to the floor by the wall and stretching the leg out to let Ming begin treating it.

"Bad guy is getting away, do we chase him?" Maddie asks, tilting her head and her voice accompanied with a low growl.

"We have his scent, now," he says with a shake of his head. "If he's smart, he's got a plan to get out of town fast if he lives in Anchorage. And the wolves should be here soon, they could fit through that tunnel, if only barely. I'm sure Wilson will love a chance to pursue. We did what we came to do."

"But he got away," Maddie says with a frown, gesturing with the gladius to the locked iron door.

Tony thinks about that for a moment, "Back at the Guild, the instructors point out that not every job, every contract ends with a clean, easy answer. Sometimes it's just a job, we take the contract, do the job, and if we get answers, good. If not, as long as we completed the job, we'll get paid and work another day."

"That's very… mercenary," she says with a sour expression.

"Well, it is a mercenary guild," he says with an unseen smirk. "Besides, we've done good work here, banishing the shoggoth and giving Ice Fury and the locals something to follow up on. More than they had before we took the job."

Maddie doesn't push further, knowing he's right, it's just her pride that's hurt from the guy getting away from her after having been so close to getting him.

"Anthony, can you lend me your strength, so that I may purge the corruption completely and begin to mend the bones?" Ming asks from where she is knelt over Bagira's leg, having removed the sandal and lower length of the robe from the wound and done an initial cleaning with water.

"Absolutely," he says, kneeling next to her and joining his spell with hers as Maddie keeps watch while they wait for Ice Fury to arrive.

Richard frowns down at the updated report from his scouts and his deployed strike teams, concerned with the recent activity from the invading enemy to the south.

"We're going to have to do something about this," he says as he leans back in the chair at the table he sits at in Hoffman Resources, using it as a central meeting place for all the groups involved with the upcoming operation.

"What's there to do? He's pulled in his dogs and it looks like he's digging in," the man sitting across from him on the long table says, others arrayed around it with no one at the head or foot of the table, to keep anyone from being offended.

The man all but scowls as he says it, looking across at Richard, the man reaching a bit over six feet tall when standing, broad in the shoulders and hips with a powerful build and wearing a green camouflage uniform over his sun touched pale skin and brown hair cut in a sharp military fashion.

"We can't take them if they dig in, we need them to maneuver," Richard says before the man can continue, nodding though not actually agreeing with the man, a Colonel from the Texas National Guard by the name of Neilson, the commander of the brigade that is mobilizing to push against the invasion, from the 36th Infantry Division.

"We're not fighting in the stone age, even with the magic fluctuating like it does," the Colonel says, looking around at the others at the table, which includes Thor, who is leading the large contingent of NeoViking mercenaries being hired by the state to help the army, Richard for the Horde, the senior Knight of Merciful Aid and finally John Anderson, the official representative of the Mercenary Guild, who has also been contracted to provide augmentees to both the Horde, the army and the NeoVikings who are contracted through the Guild.

"My tanks and artillery may not work half the time, but half the time it does, and when it does, we can smash any of the third rate gear they've got supporting them," Neilson says with a finger pushing at the table to accentuate his point.

"That supposes that they have the same level of tech available that they did when you last had an accurate report on them," Richard points out with a raised finger of his own. "You _don't_ have accurate reports on their order of battle from sooner than two years ago. I do, and they show a lot more armor in the form of tanks and technical vehicles than your own reports show."

"They don't stand a chance against our Abrams once we close the distance," Neilson says with a shake of his head. "We will fix them in place, then pound them. When the magic surges, our infantry tightens on our tanks, and we defend using wards until the tech comes back."

"Army mages aren't as strong as the local personnel who you want contracted to help, and even with them helping out that's still a thin line to fight," Richard says with a shake of his head, then holds up the packet of reports in front of him and tossing it across at the Colonel. "And my forward elements show that their vehicles move during magic as well as tech, so while you're stationary, they can maneuver and counter attack, meaning that they can isolate small units with their own mobile reserves and whittle you away. You can't beat them by attacking their defenses."

"While I appreciate your opinion, _Mr._ Michaels," the Colonel says dryly while glancing at the report now sitting in front of him. "You are a civilian who is volunteering to work with us as contractors in support of _my_ mission. You are not in command."

"Going on a suicide mission is not what anyone who works with me is willing to sign on for," Richard says with a shake of his head. "And in case you've forgotten, we haven't agreed to support you, yet."

"Bullshit, Michaels," says the Daniels, the current Knight Protector of the Knights of Merciful Aid in the Houston area, a man with greying, dirty blond hair a few inches long with a narrow face and a hawk nose, his expression angry as he glares at Richard in his grey leather armor. "The Mercenary Guild has a standing contract _requiring_ them to render aid when requested by the local United States military or State operated National Guard units."

"It _had_ a standing contract to that effect, yes," Richard says, emphasizing the word.

"What do you mean 'had'?" Neilson asks, leaning forward and a scowl starting to form on his face, unaccustomed to not being the one in control in almost any room he enters.

"One year ago the contract expired and was renegotiated," Anderson says from where he has remained silent since being introduced at the beginning of the meeting before Richard had opened the updated reports from the forward forces. "During the renegotiation the language was changed to reflect concerns by certain parties within the guild and surrounding areas in regard to the government's ability to quickly and effectively respond to a possible threat against the city and surrounding area."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Neilson asks angrily, his stocky form tight with emotion and his square face starting to color. "I wasn't informed about any change in the contract!"

"An oversight by the state and federal government, no doubt," Anderson says, non-plussed as he slides a thick folder across the table to the Colonel. "The negotiation was conducted by the state and federal officials, and I believe there were some representatives from your own unit present as well. Your legal consultant within your unit should be aware, if not full knowledgeable, about the change in the terms of the contract."

"You can keep that copy," Anderson says as the army officer takes the thick folder, opening it to show roughly a hundred pages of printed contract. "The bottom line is that you cannot require mobilization of anyone living in the Houston area or an organization headquartered here without invoking Martial Law on the entirety of the Houston City limits."

"And right now Houston is not threatened," Richard points out, earning him a glare from Neilson.

"Are you seriously going to lawyer up on us when there's a fucking Mexican Army invading Texas?!" Daniels says in a snarl as he rises to his feet and nearly throwing the chair over that he is sitting.

"I'm pointing out that currently there is a partially mobilized brigade of National Guard available to repel the invasion, and that it cannot require the local population to levy militia or contract in order to augment the unit," Richard says calmly. "In other words, we need to talk about how we're going to manage the unit and the plans for the actions we're planning on conducting against the invaders."

"If you don't support the brigade I swear to God that everyone will know that you sat by and did nothing!" Daniels snarls across at him, slamming his fist down on the table in anger.

"If I don't support the brigade it will go out and get decimated, or more likely it will wait for more forces to join it until it's confident it can win," Richard replies, again calmly, which just makes both Neilson and Daniels even madder. "And during that time _I_ will take forces I will then lead to cut off and destroy the enemy invasion on our own. It will cost more in both lives and money, but I can do it. I'd rather not waste lives, though."

"Why you arrogant son of a-" Daniels snarls, reaching for his dagger on his belt but Neilson grabs his wrist from beside him, having risen as Richard had finished his statement, his expression still angry but with a bit of curiosity with it as well.

"What do you mean you'll cut them off and destroy them?" he asks, frowning and studying Richard from a different perspective.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss my plans for the upcoming campaign without reaching an understanding with the leaders of all those involved," he says with a wave at all of those at the table. "I have a coherent shapeshifter unit, but it's not as numerous even if it is tested in combat."

"He speaks of the joint operation conducted by my people and US forces in retaking New Orleans, if you will recall, though I know you were not involved in the action," Thor says from beside Richard, looking odd to most of them in the room, wearing a royal blue Armani suit with a white shirt and a red silk tie compared to his usual jeans, t-shirt and leather vest, his hair styled professionally at the nape of his neck and his beard also neatly trimmed short.

"I would also like to point out, since the majority of the mission preparation and planning was never made public, that Mr. Michaels was instrumental in planning and commanding the operation," Anderson adds, sliding another folder to the Colonel. "That is an abbreviated report you can also keep and validate with the Federal Government through secure channels."

"Commanded the operation?" Neilson says with skeptical expression, but opening the folder and glancing at the contents but closing it and looking critically at Richard. "You plan on taking command of my brigade?"

"No, I expect that I will be authorized to command the Joint Task Force of available forces being mobilized and contracted to repel the invading forces from the Republic of Texas by any and all means I deem necessary," Richard says with his hands folded neatly in front of him.

"Bullshit," Neilson says with a snort. "Even if the Governor allowed that, much less the President, who would have to approve it as well, there's no way you can get everyone to agree to let you take charge. Without that contract requiring them to support the militia, you'll never get the leaders of those groups to agree."

"I speak for all of my people when I say that we wholeheartedly support Richard Michaels taking command of any such endeavor," Thor says from where he mirrors Richard's posture and leans forward and folds his own hands on the table, a predatory smile spreading across his face.

"Also, we have agreements from all the senior leaders of the groups willing to assist in such a venture," Anderson says as he pulls a briefcase from below the table, opening it and setting a stack of folders and contracts on the table. "This constitutes approximately eighty percent of what you would have been able to draft had the old contract remained in effect. It also includes organizational structures and supports for all those involved, which the previous contract did not include, which as I understand it, will increase unit efficiency by an order of magnitude yet to be determined, though currently estimated to be approximately double what the base numbers would indicate."

"The term is 'force multiplier'," Richard says, looking levelly at the Colonel for a moment, then rising, those on his side of the table rising as well.

"Where are you going?" Daniels asks, scowling as he fights not to yell at Richard at the turn of events.

"I'm going to leave the Colonel and you to decide on what you want to do," he says as he steps away from the table and heads to the double doors at the end of the room. "I have plans to manage and things to do. You have until seventeen hundred, about five hours from now, to read those reports and contracts and confirm everything I've said. After that, I'm going to go kick those bastards out of my country, with or without your help, and make them wish they'd never pissed me off along the way."

"Michaels," Neilson says sharply, and Richard pauses at the door and looks back at the older man with a patient expression. "They said you served, back before you got infected. That true?"

" _Sua Sponte_ , Colonel," Richard says with a fierce smile, reminiscent of a hungry tiger. "Rangers lead the way."

The colonel has a thoughtful expression on his face, Daniels still scowling, while Richard and his group leaves them alone in the conference room.

Tony sits in the hall beneath the Citadel of Ice Fury, uncomfortable as he waits with most of his party for Maddie and the women of the group to arrive. They'd been offered and accepted housing in the compound, since Wilson has been contracted by the Khan and is honor bound to protect them, so after the mission earlier they had come here to clean up and rest. That was yesterday night and after Tony had done training routines with the Mongol women this morning, who are proficient with a couple forms of Kung Fu but are not the equal to a black belt, they had split up to clean up and prepare for the last dinner they will have in Alaska, as they will leave in the morning. Maddie had been given separate quarters, and rather than argue and create a scene, as they are both a bit young to have much sway against the much older Alpha in his own territory, they had accepted the arrangement.

So Tony is sitting at the table wearing an untucked and unbuttoned flannel shirt, jeans and a white t-shirt, acutely aware that he is the only normal human in a room dominated by shapeshifters when Maddie and the rest of his group arrives. He lifts his head from where he has been looking at the room and the brim of the baseball cap he's been wearing since the stares from the shapeshifters at his multicolored face had gotten uncomfortable the other day during the plan to follow the shoggoth. He smiles and stands as he looks at Maddie, the others in the group noted but his attention on his girlfriend in a dark blue sundress and sandals, her dark purple hair combed and styled to her right side, the stubble on her left side a contrast of opposites. The dark blue dress is shaded and has small figures in the print of the cloth, purple butterflies that makes the dress accent the purple of her hair that falls like a waterfall from her head to cascade lightly around her shoulders.

"You look gorgeous," Tony says as he pulls her chair out for her, and she leans up towards him but pulls back with a grin before kissing him, flipping his hat from his head with a quick gesture and sitting in the offered chair.

"You are a flatterer," she says with a smile as he scoots the chair in for her and she pulls the ballcap on backwards over her head, damping her hair slightly, but the gesture not lost on those in the room, that he is hers.

"Is it flattery if it's true?" he asks, sitting next to her, smirking.

"Good evening, Mr. Wilson," Maddie says to her right, where the Ice Fury alpha sits, his head tilted as he studies the interplay, his daughter on his right hand with narrowed eyes at Maddie, calculating.

"Good evening, Ms. Michaels," he says with a nod of his own. "I have sent word to your father on the results of our contract against the shoggoth. I am grateful for your help in the matter, as is all of Ice Fury and the residents of the Anchorage area."

"Anything that lets innocent people sleep safer at night is something worth doing," Maddie says with a smile and nod of thanks to him.

"That there was a bounty on the creature you tracked and killed without backup had nothing to do with it, I presume?" Lorelei says with an arched eyebrow and a catty tone.

"Can't put food on the table with good intentions, as the Khan would say," Tony comments neutrally from where he is glancing around the room, his awareness stretched and cautious.

"And the bounty of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars you managed to collect from the city's treasury will put food on the table, then? Not fill the Horde's already large warchest as it pushes further north towards our own territory?" Wilson asks after a glance to his daughter which silences her.

Maddie takes a breath and considers for a moment before replying, knowing that this is a political battlefield, as Tasha and Mischa would say, one she isn't prepared to fight.

"Well, _I_ was the primary on it," Tony replies as she opens her mouth to give a neutral response. "So, it's actually putting food on _my_ table. And it'll help me pay for college I think, along with some other things I need in order to keep the business I am partnered in above board and competitive."

"You're a business owner?" Wilson asks with a frown as he picks up his heavy stein of beer, the appetizers for dinner spread on the tables in the hall, dinner arriving shortly. "You're a little young, aren't you?"

"Not owner, partner," Tony replies with a shake of his head, taking a sip of his water and putting it back down. "An older woman, a mentor of ours, owns the shop. Maddie and I do field work on magic hazmat when it pops up in the neighborhood or if it catches our eye."

"I presume that's how you two met, then?" Wilson says with raised brow and a nod of understanding.

"More or less," Tony says with a tilt of his head. "Its how we got to know each other. We met for the first time in New Orleans, during the battle."

"Saved my ass from a demi-god," Maddie says with a smile at him, putter her hand on his on top of the table.

"You had it handled," he says with a dismissive glance to the side and shake of his head. "I just sped it along, that's all."

She snorts and shakes her head but doesn't argue, the same conversation they've had about it a number of times, familiar.

"A demi-god?" Lorelei says, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Like summoned or something?"

"We're not exactly sure how, actually," Tony says with a thoughtful frown. "The witch who was responsible ran away when it was obvious we had won the day and her ace in the hole, a god of the sea, failed to kill the Khan and we took it down."

"I still can't believe you kept the skull," Maddie says with a smirk and shake of her head.

"You don't just discard the head of a god, if you manage to kill one, not matter what pantheon it comes from or whether you believe in it or not," Tony says with a shrug and a shake of his head. "Mark my words, it will come in handy."

"The skull of a god?" Wilson with a frown of thought. "I heard that they had summoned Greek heroes and demi-gods, and that the god of the sea rose at the end of the battle to try and keep the city."

"Poseidon," Maddie says with a frown, nearly spitting to the side. "Bastard broke my legs good in the end, the broken hip was the real bitch of the wounds, though."

"You gave better than you got," Tony reminds her. "I doubt he would have recovered from that thrust in the gut you gave him, or the veins you opened in his arm."

"You were the two in that one-two attack, though," Maddie says with a shake of her own head. "And you finished him off, before he could try and bounce back or run away. That's what gave us the day."

"Team effort," Tony says with a shake of his head, pausing and catching himself before saying 'dad'. "The Khan had him distracted and focused on him, that was the only reason I got the shots I did. Or you were able to get close enough to cut him and get the Khan back on his feet for the finale."

"You killed Poseidon?" Lorelei says with an incredulous expression. "Like, the god of the sea from Greek mythology, Poseidon?"

"Yeah, though death for those guys is a temporary thing, kinda-sorta," Tony says with a frown of his own. "Part of the reason I kept the skull and the Khan scattered other pieces to places no one but him knows, hopefully keep it from manifesting any time soon."

"Now I understand why you came so well referenced through the local guild, even if you are young," Wilson says as he studies Tony and Maddie, re-assessing them yet again. "Though I am surprised the Khan has allowed his daughter, adopted or not, to date someone so much older than her. I would have reservations with such an arrangement."

"How-" Tony starts to ask, but Maddie gives him a quick, hard squeeze of the hand and he breaks off and simply shakes his head.

"Speaking of arrangements," Lorelei says with a toss of her head, glancing at where the rest of Tony's party is sitting at a table off of the dais together, only the four of them at the head table with a pair of shapeshifter guards.

Wilson frowns and looks to his daughter, "What are you about?"

"The wolf prince, Timothy, would like to stay with us for the remainder of the summer," she says with large, endearing eyes at her father, her tone indicating far more than the simple words alone.

The old shapeshifter narrows his hard grey eyes at her, his nostrils flaring slightly and then shifting to the young were-wolf seated a couple dozen yards away. Tim senses the gaze upon him but doesn't raise his eyes to meet the older wolf, his eyes still downcast as he turns his head in that direction without raising them. The sudden tension in the Alpha causes everyone in the room to suddenly quiet, and the quiet intensity could be cut with a spoon it is so thick. Wilson takes three deep breaths before turning his attention back to Lorelei beside him, who has also lowered her eyes to her father.

"We will speak of this further in private," Wilson says in a low growl, then turns back to Maddie and Tony. "I again thank you for your help, and hope that your journey home continues without further delay or difficulty."

"Thank you," Maddie says as she and Tony both nod in thanks, both wondering what the hell Tim has gotten himself into.

"Well, this is a fine development," Richard says as he looks away from the mirror that a moment ago had Maddie and Tony on it, telling him about the Wolf Alphas' son wanting to stay in Alaska.

Mischa is sitting in the couch nearby with Tasha beside her as he turns from the mirror to them in the living room of the cabin within the Bastion. He has an arm across his front and his left hand up scratching the stubble on his chin with a thoughtful frown as he turns to them, Mischa leaning back with her swollen stomach out and covered by a t-shirt, wearing pajama bottoms as she does most of the time these days as they close in on the delivery date. Tasha sits leaned forward beside her with her hands clasped between her knees, her eyes intense as she focuses on the problem, memories having come back to her, if not all of them, then most, and letting her be able to contribute more and more.

"Domascas will be pissed about this," Tasha says bluntly, shaking her head. "We don't need that now, especially with us leaving to head out after this invasion force."

"With Colonel Neilson signing on with us, we'll be okay for the mission, but…" he frowns, looking in the distance in thought. "I can't leave them here with the Jackals, like we planned. I trust them, but it'll cause too much turmoil when I get back and with the economy in the south of the state up for grabs, we'll lose chances to expand our holdings further and whatnot."

"Who do you want to take instead?" Mischa asks, nodding in agreement, knowing he means both the Horde's influence as well as Hoffman Resources' opportunities in the aftermath of the campaign. "And who to leave behind, besides me?"

"As much I want to leave Noel, it's too obvious," Richard says with a shake of his head, pacing silently behind the couch the two women sit on. "I think leaving Jameson and your other half of the Cat Clan with Mrs. Domasca, if she doesn't want to volunteer to come with the magical support. She was on the fence last I heard."

"She is," Mischa says with a nod of her own. "She's waiting until the last minute to announce to keep folks on their toes and while working the political capital for all it's worth."

"We could use her, she's got the skills, but I'm concerned about her undermining Autumn when we get forward of our normal stomping grounds," he says with a concerned frown of his own. "She's too canny to not see an opportunity to undercut her and curry more favor with the other groups in the loose alliance they've formed. It could destabilize them during and after the fight. I'd rather not have to contend with that."

"Take Thomas and leave Bridgette?" Tasha with a raised eyebrow while turning to look at them over her shoulder. "With this development with Tim, they're going to want to keep someone here to dampen the effects of a wayward son running off with the princess of Ice Fury."

"And arguing that I need Thomas to help manage the Brigade and other elements we'll be working with will stroke their ego, while giving a plausible reason to take one, and not the other," Richard says with a nod of his own.

"And it lets them save face on why she's staying behind, with only myself and Mitchell here as the most senior leadership, as Jameson isn't subtle and I'm considered practically an invalid with my pregnancy so far along," Mischa says with a frown at the triplets in her womb. "I love them, but it's annoying as hell to not be able to do what I would normally do."

"We'll cope," Richard says, pausing to place a soothing hand on her shoulder, joined a moment later by Tasha's as well.

"They're still not going to be happy about this," Mischa says, looking back and up at Richard.

"Yeah, I'm not really looking forward to breaking the news to them," Richard admits with a frown of his own and heading to the front door and to the stadium where the Horde is gathering in preparation for moving out this evening to move west and repel the enemy invaders.

Tony smiles as he looks down at the ridge of mountains laid before them in the afternoon light, though his watch says it is evening time. They'd left Anchorage this morning and flown for the day, stopping briefly around noon to let their mounts swoop down on a herd of moose and eat before taking wing and continuing on. Tim had remained behind with Ice Fury, meaning they have an extra mount as they fly, and Tony had mounted one of the Rocs he had traded for in Mongolia, knowing he needs to become more familiar and comfortable with them. Now they coast and glide on the air currents, losing altitude as they prepare to bed down for the night, and though he knows by the map that they are almost out of Alaska and close to the Canadian border as well as some small towns he signals for them to camp in the mountains, Maddie on Trixie in the lead acknowledging before dropping further to the earth and a fold in the contours of the mountainside.

They land easily in a large area beside a stream, downed trees that span a hundred yards or more across and slashing down the hillside for about five hundred yards, likely a tornado touched down and causing the wreckage. Though cluttered with the deadfall, the Ptactors and Rocs have no serious issues finding a comfortable place to bed down as the riders tie them down and go about making camp for the group. Tony wonders as he cleans out an area for a fire and stacking wood to the side of it at the flying mounts' demeanors, ferocious predators in nature, yet trained and nearly domesticated by man. Maddie kneels beside him and lowers a large log beside him down from her shoulder, nearly her own height and two feet across, the weight easy for her to handle.

"What's on your mind?" she asks as she pulls her gladius from her back and uses it to start hacking at the log, chopping off pieces the size of her thigh.

"Dad mentioned that they're going on a campaign against a Mexican army that's invaded," he says, laying out the wood in an orderly stack for the fire. "It feels weird, not to be there."

Maddie smiles and snorts quietly, "Weird, but I'm not sorry. I'm getting to spend more time with you. Sounds like a win to me."

"There is that," Tony says with a smile, reaching over and taking her hand for a moment and squeezing it before taking more wood for the fire.

"Besides, they still may be fighting when we get there," Maddie says with a smirk, pulling a large piece of wood from the upright log and dropping to the side. "Rick said they were moving today, and the Mexicans have had almost a week to set in. Sounds like they're on the defensive and he'll have to break them from their positions or get them to come out to him."

"Yeah, he's had a week of active patrolling around them and along their supply lines," Tony comments, shaking his head in thought. "The Vikings are probably raiding their ships, with the US Navy as well. And I can't believe he's not using the Ptactors to drop Agogites and other fighters from the Horde and Vikings behind their front lines between Corpus Cristi and the original border to the south. I'm no General, but that's got to play hell with their supplies and morale."

"We've got another three thousand miles or so to the Texas border, then past that to the Area of Operations for the fight," Maddie says, pausing in her work with a contemplative moue. "That's a solid week of travel to get there."

"We can cut that down and be there faster," Tony comments with a frown of thought. "I mean, if we want to. Dad did say to take our time, he doesn't need us there. He's got the rest of the Horde, the Rangers, that brigade from the National Guard and some other Military units helping out."

"The only ones out of the whole group he has _with_ him are the Horde and Aunt A's people," Maddie says with a shake of her head, splitting another piece from the log, now significantly smaller and a sizable stack of firewood next to her. "The military units and National Guard aren't exactly enthusiastic to have the tail wag the dog in their eyes. That doesn't fill me with warm and fuzzies."

"Point," he says with a sigh, sitting back on his heels and glancing at her. "You think we should hurry up, try to get there for whatever they're getting into?"

"Don't you?" she asks with a raised eyebrow and slight cock of her head, a slight frown on her face. "I want to spend time with you, but that's our family running into a fight. It doesn't feel right, them facing danger without us there."

Tony nods with a thoughtful frown of his own, "Can't argue much with that. It's our home, too, and I don't like that someone's threatening it when we're not there to defend it."

"Exactly," she says with a nod, shoving her gladius down into the last of the log to split it apart. "So we have to get there and help. It's what we do."

"Apparently," Tony says with a sigh and a nod, his thoughts roaming elsewhere. "Soufe says the Rocs can handle longer flights if we can glide longer and save powered flight to just glide on the wind. The winds will favor us if we go higher, but we'll need a thermal to climb that high, I think we should be able to find one along the mountains, then once at altitude we should be able to knock out eight hundred to a thousand miles in a day, but our mounts are going to need a good feed and place to crash for an undisturbed night."

"We can call ahead, have something prepped in the states," Maddie suggests, pulling out a map from her pocket along with some marked string to indicate distance.

"Seattle?" Tony asks, touching the wood for the fire with his bare left hand, setting it alight.

"A bit over eight hundred, under nine from here," Maddie says, tilting her head back and forth as she considers the map.

"I'll call Aunt A's shop, hopefully Atticus is there and can make the call for us," Tony says, moving to his pack to pull out the mirror that links to the one at the shop. "Otherwise, I'll have to call dad. He'll help, but might take convincing."

"God knows I don't need Aunt A to nag about our decision to hurry up," Maddie says, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "She already has enough stored up about me leaving to get you, I don't want to hear more of it before we get back."

"Which I appreciate," Tony says with a smile, leaning over and giving her a kiss that lingers.

Richard frowns as he stands in the late evening light, the camp for the main body of the Horde and an Infantry Battalion from the National Guard Brigade behind him, barb wire and foxholes surrounding it. His people have helped the Guardsmen set up and dig in, surprising the part time soldiers, who despite not being full time know their trade and their importance to the defense of the country. A few of Richard's own people from the Horde are members of the unit, and while in the formation they have generally helped along the integration of the Horde members and the unit. Richard wears military fatigues, but of the green and grey pattern he had made as one of the patterns for the Horde when on missions, similar cut and style to that worn by the soldiers but colored differently, though where it would say US Army on a uniform, his says HORDE, and instead of his name on the opposite side is simply KHAN.

"What's that?" Autumn asks from where she approaches behind him, squinting at light in the distance, a glow on the horizon to the southwest, despite it being nearly midnight.

"That would be the Corpus Cristi food reserves and wharf district," Richard says with a flat expression and tone, Autumn blinking and turning to him in surprise.

"What happened?" she asks, glancing at where William is standing beside Richard, a trio of US Army officers approaching, the Colonel in their center, all with field gear on and weapons slung but loaded.

"Reports have come in from my scouts," Richard says to the Colonel, who nods to Richard from under his helmet, more as one peer to another rather than as a subordinate or commander. "I lost eight people, but the mission was a success. The docks will be nothing but cinder and ash by morning, and the food storage centers are blazing away as we speak."

"My folks think they can hold up for another week, with what's left," the Colonel says with a thoughtful expression as Autumn's face locks down hard in a scowl, ignored by the officer, her equivalent to a poker face.

"They could, but they won't be able to do anything at the end of that time, though they'll probably have gas, if we don't hit that in the next few days," Richard agrees with a nod. "We've delayed moving for this reason. We aren't breathing down their necks, they have room to move and try to get ground of their choosing before their supplies are too low to let them do anything but sit in place."

"What about the defenses of the city?" Autumn asks, and the Colonel frowns, glancing at a Major standing at his side, his Executive Officer.

"They're strong, but if they stay in place, we can wait them out, with the blockade in place," he says for the Brigade Commander. "If they move, we have to move to meet them to keep them from raiding and sacking other towns and cities in the state. They have a few lines of advance open to them besides where we are here, on the coast, since we haven't invested around the city entirely, yet. If they move quickly, they could make it to San Antonio or even Austin, and try to repeat what they did here, without support from the sea."

"I still think we should send my Cav Squadron out to keep them from trying to roll up our flank," the Colonel says with a frown at Richard, who shakes his head calmly in response.

"We don't want to spook them any more than we already have, what with literally burning their primary plan to the ground," he says with a wave at the glow in the distance. "Send out your scouts in small teams, two vehicles at most, and keep an eye on where they go. When they're where we want them, we'll hit them."

"And where do we want them, exactly?" the Colonel asks with a raised eyebrow and pointed tone.

"Intelligence drives operations, Colonel," Richard says in reply, shaking his head, his arms crossed as he looks at the older man squarely, Krigsherre hanging on his hip. "We have more of it than they do, and I plan to keep it that way."

"You're annoying as shit to work with," the Colonel says with a scowl, spitting tobacco from the dip in his mouth. "Anyone ever tell you that before?"

"Constantly," he says dryly, glancing at where Autumn, Stanislov and a few others from the contractor group are standing. "You have your orders. Keep me appraised of any developments, no matter how insignificant they may seem. The campaign may rely on them."

"I'd know what I'm looking for if the damn cat would just tell me," the officer mutters as he turns away with his XO and guard to return to his headquarters tent.

When the Army officers and their guard are back around their tent nearly a hundred yards away, Autumn, Stanislov, the senior Rabbi of the Jewish contingent and the senior Mercenary rep, Bill Georges, a Native American with a milky right eye and long black hair, all close in on Richard and William. Richard smiles at the group and the four Alphas from the Horde on the edges of the group, the shapeshifters in similar patterned clothing to his own.

"You going to tell us what we're waiting for?" Bill asks, his hand on the heavy revolver on his thigh, axe on his hip opposite and his wrinkled face scowling at Richard.

"If I don't tell anyone, not even my closest allies, then no one can complain of preferential treatment," Richard says with a shrug and a glance at Autumn, to which she frowns.

"I got us through New Orleans, didn't I?" Richard asks, glancing at the mercenary, then at the Rabbi and Stanislov in turn. "And I've come through in a pinch other times as well. Trust me."

" _I_ trust you, Khan," Rabbi Josef says with a nod under his black brimmed hat, greying curls framing his face. "I do not know if I trust the Guardsmen to hold their end of the matter, however."

Richard smirks, "Nor do I. I have a backup for that, just in case."

"What kind of backup?" Autumn asks, eyebrow raised and tilting her head under the silk grey hood of her goddess given robes.

"Not _even_ my most trusted advisors and friends," he replies with a shake of his head.

"As a cat I would expect you to respect other people's curiosity more than you do," Autumn grouses with a frown at him.

"Curiosity killed the cat, though I've heard satisfaction brought it back," he says with a smile. "Keep your folks ready but rested, they'll move no later than mid-afternoon tomorrow, and in two days, three at the most, we'll have a battle to fight. I trust you all to be ready for it, along with the Vikings."

"If there's one thing we can all agree on, it is that we can all trust the Vikings to be ready for a fight," the Rabbi says to a chorus of chuckles agreeing with him.

Richard stops at the small tent he has erected in the camp, the Alphas from the Horde trailing him and stopping as he does, just outside the flaps of the small six foot by six foot tent for the Khan. Richard turns to the other shapeshifters, his voice low so only they can hear, no others within over a dozen yards, and those his trusted security personnel under William and Hermano.

"Status on the strike force?" he asks, looking at Mitchell, who had gone out with the teams on the attack on Corpus Cristi.

"The five in critical condition are stabilized," he says with a deep breath. "Three almost went loup, but the panacea kept them on this side of sane. They'll all be mobile in a day or so. Two will probably be ready for the battle, maybe three."

"That leaves us with only thirty two Agogites on the march," Thomas says with a frown of thought, glancing at the others also in the military type uniforms the shapeshifters are all wearing. "Plus our fighters that mobilized from the Horde, four hundred thirty three as of sundown."

"I know our numbers and situation," Richard says flatly, a rebuke but with no heat, projecting calm and control in the situation. "An assault on the city would have been more costly than anyone is willing to discuss much less accept, with the exception of the Colonel who thinks his vehicles are the gods' gift to mankind."

"He'll run off after his cavalry when they make contact with the enemy vanguard," Noel says from the side, his voice a low growl in the dark, his head shaking in disapproval.

"Probably," Richard accedes with a calm nod. "I expect as much anyway, especially when our lead elements punch the Mexicans in the nose to get them riled up and charging in that directions."

"What do you mean?" Domasca asks, tilting his head in surprise.

"Mitchell, have teams of ten, two Agogites in each, move out in the next six hours to start looking at possible lines of march north and northwest from Corpus Cristi," Richard orders to the Cat Alpha. "Fifteen teams, about a third of our people. I want them to go out, ambush hard along the routes we discussed earlier in regards to Operation Stonewall. Phase one is underway already, that will be phase two, and will lead to the Colonel and his forces moving along one of those lines of advance."

"Operation Stonewall?" Thomas asks, frowning. "I don't understand."

"Stonewall Jackson was a cavalry commander in the American Civil War," Richard says. "When the battle is over, you'll understand. Until then, we have work to do, so let's get to it."

Autumn follows the group of shapeshifter Alphas at a distance and when they disperse from Rich's tent she moves forward to talk to her brother, hopefully alone. She arrives and before she can open the flap to the small tent she can hear him call her inside, his hearing much better than her own and another point of consternation for her. She pushes open the flap to find him sitting cross legged on the ground, a sleeping mat rolled out on the ground just large enough to reach from one tent wall to the other and taking up almost half of the space, another quarter taken up with his rucksack and a duffle bag filled with his armor. He gestures to the duffle and she uncomfortably sits on the bag across from him with a frown down at him.

"What are you doing?" she says, glowering at her brother, part of her dreading his response.

"My job," he replies evenly with a small tilt of his head, then quirking an eyebrow. "Are you ready to do your job?"

" _My_ job?" she asks, brows raised in surprise.

"Yes, High Priestess of Brighid, are you ready for the battle to come?" he says, his tone sing-song as he speaks. "I am moving pieces to the field, preparing for the war to come. Are you ready to reap the valor and honor of the field?"

"You're setting them up to die," Autumn accuses him, frowning at him. "You know that Colonel won't listen and is going to go running off into a trap. He's going to get good men killed."

Richard stares at her with a blank expression for a pair of breaths before nodding, "Yes. Yes, he will. And there is nothing I can do to stop him from spending those lives."

"Bullshit," Autumn snarls at him, leaning forward and hissing the words at him. "They gave you command of this Task Force. You have the paperwork to prove it. Order him to obey. Make him stop!"

She's nearly yelling the last, clenching her jaw with anger as she finishes and glaring at him, blinking as she realizes what she's saying, and more importantly who she is saying it to.

"I don't have the time to," Richard says as she takes a breath to calm herself and she blinks at him in surprise as he continues. "It takes time to relieve someone for incompetence or disobeying orders. Right now, he's following orders and toeing the line. Anything I call him out on right now he can claim is just contingency planning. And even in the heat of battle if I'm right next to him he can claim, as a commander in the field, to be taking advantage of an enemy weakness by doing a reconnaissance in force or a local counter-attack to weaken enemy forces."

Autumn blinks, hearing the phrases he uses with scorn in his voice, recognizing he is upset as well at the politics involved in the situation they are in.

"So, we can't stop him?" she asks, dejectedly, realizing that there is nothing she or her brother can do to save the soldiers that are trying to help them while under the command of an arrogant Colonel.

"No, I can't, not right now," Richard says with a sigh, shaking his head and looking at her solemnly. "But I can make their sacrifice not be in vain. And to that end, I'm maneuvering him and the brigade into Operation Stonewall. It will work, and if half of what I am planning falls right, then we'll come out well ahead. But I need you ready at the start of it."

"How much am I going to hate this 'Operation' of yours?" she asks with a sigh, leaning back uncomfortably on the pile of armor in the duffle bag.

"A lot," he says with a shrug. "But I promise, no death curses on my person cast by my allies. Scout's honor."

"You were never a cub scout, much less a boy scout," Autumn says dryly with a frown at him.

"Semantics," he responds with a shrug and a smirk.

Richard looks up from where he has been looking at the map where updates from the night's recon missions are annotated with push pins on the particle board under the paper. Each pin is color coordinated for the unit type, blue for the US Army and military forces, green and yellow for shapeshifters and contractors, then red for the enemy positions, small stickie notes next to them with the strength and type written in. The reports have been rolling in since yesterday when he'd given the orders, and though the National Guard had not done what he intended, they have not yet violated the letter of his orders.

He's about to make an observation on the route the enemy seems to prefer to the north when a younger shapeshifter runs into the small tent they are using for a command post, a werewolf in his late twenties.

"The Nimir-ra is being challenged by Amber, from Heavy," he says in a rush, looking at Richard for a moment before ducking his head.

"Lead the way," he replies, forcing himself to walk calmly after the younger man, who obviously wants to run, but restrains himself to a walk like the Khan.

Tasha walks down the trail in the camp set up by the members of the Horde and the Contractors not mixed in with the Army, both purely magically inclined and the Mercs from the Guild, numbering near a thousand in a camp that is roughly square and following Richard's standards for hygiene though far less organized overall. She has been talking with the shapeshifters, checking to make sure everything is ready for the upcoming battle, but beyond that, she is re-familiarizing herself with them. Not just for herself, as her memories of becoming Alpha of the Cat Clan and then of the Horde are distant memories to her, even if it is only a few weeks for everyone else. No, it's to let them know that she is not just back in body but in mind as well.

She woke up nearly a blank slate, and though she has remembered faster as time went on, there is still a lot of her life from before the abyss in which she languished that she doesn't remember. The important things, though, have pushed through, and Richard has been her rock to lean on, as always. He reminds her what she needs to do, and she trusts him completely, so although it was not a natural instinct to make the rounds and check on their people and socialize, she has, and is grateful for it. As she speaks and meets with her people she remembers more and more about them, and she realizes that they are _her_ people, that they care about her, and she cares about them.

She'd come out of the abyss and clung to Richard and Mischa like a lifeline, the only things that felt familiar, that felt right to her. Everyone else was a stranger at first, even Jocelyn, which she now realizes hurt the young girl, and she now recognizes that same look she had received from many of those in the Horde. She wasn't some distant figure to these people, she was one of them, she was family to them, and they were to her. They _are_ to her.

"Alpha," a young man's voice says, and Tasha turns from where she walks with her two security guards, members of Clan Cat not really with her for protection but more for the status it implies to those who are conscious of such matters, though she and Richard had never felt the need for it personally.

"Andrew," Tasha says after a moment of looking at him, smiling at him, the sight of him drawing a blank but as his scent strikes her she recognizes him. "You are looking good. How is Sarah? Still working on her degree?"

"She's doing good, ma'am," he says with a smile and nod of his head, being younger than her by only a few years and in college himself. "She's with a squad in the Infantry unit, we're both here, figured we wanted to be part of history, and this is our country, too, after all."

Tasha nods agreement, and opens her mouth to respond but is cut off by an angry snarl as a woman shouts at her from downhill.

"Tasha Nash!" is shouted from a couple dozen yards away, and she turns, fighting to keep a calm expression as her inner beast snarls and growls its own silent challenge.

"I challenge you as Alpha female of the Horde," the dark skinned woman says, her stocky frame nearly six feet tall and wide, more masculine than feminine, thick blond cornrows running back on her scalp contrasting with her ebony skin, dark eyes and brows.

Tasha turns to her, her jaw set and taking a deep breath and fights an internal struggle for a moment before speaking herself, her tone softer and low, though threatening.

"Do not do this, Amber," she warns. "This is not the time to let yourself be distracted. We have enemies at our door and we must fight them together, not divided."

The words are not hers, not entirely. She and Richard had talked at length about when a situation would arise and how it would best be handled. She knows that the old her would have said what she just told Amber, but she's not there yet, and her brief hesitation was from suppressing her initial reaction to the challenge and reaching for the words from her mate.

"We will fight better with a good leader to our front, not a shell and a shadow of her former self," Amber says with an angry shake of her head. "By law, face me."

"Fine," Tasha says, nearly snarling the word and taking a deep breath. "I am challenged, and get to choose our form for the fight."

Amber nods, shifting her stance in her eagerness for the fight.

"Human form, no weapons," Tasha says, shaking her head with the last, her choice causing Amber to jerk in surprise and blink a few moments in sudden uncertainty.

Tasha reaches down and unbuckles her belt holding her sword, the gift from Richard that he recovered from an agent of Roland's from before they were married. Her guard takes the belt and the other weapons as she disarms, Amber across from her standing awkwardly as she does, as she has no weapons on herself, in sweatpants and t-shirt compared to Tasha's camouflage uniform, obviously having expected Tasha to have chosen animal form of some sort for the challenge. Given a choice, she would have preferred to fight in hybrid form, her warrior body larger and more powerful than most of the Horde's, as well as fast and well proportioned. But again, Richard had recommended against it when they'd talked about it, reminding her that when it happens it will not be only a fight then and there, but also a display for the Horde. How she wins the fight is as important or more than if she wins it, she must win it as a thinking leader, not as an animal without control, which will be the perception if she were to win a challenge in animal or hybrid form.

When she has removed the last of her weapons she looks around at those gathered around, all Horde members in the front as they are in their camp and the others pushed back with some protest but nothing severe. As she lays eyes on those around her and lining the area she and Amber stand in, she receives nods of acknowledgement before they duck their heads in the circle they have created. No one will interfere. She steps forward, watching her opponent ease forward in what Tasha knows is a fighting stance for those favoring hard kicking and elbow strikes, the name of the style escaping her. They circle each other for a few breaths in the grassy area, and Tasha pauses when Richard's scent reaches her, knowing he is watching her.

She moves forward, her own arms up ready to strike or block, Richard's words from training before and after the abyss reminding her to be patient and not to leap. Amber moves forward as well, and her first kick is a blinding blur that Tasha doesn't try to dodge, the taller woman's reach too far for her. Instead she turns into the kick while darting forward, stealing away most of the force of the blow by catching it higher, though it still rattles her bones and sends a wave of pain from the impact.

Amber reacts immediately and throws an elbow at her collarbone while Tasha has an arm around her leg, but Tasha rolls her shoulder and the blow is painful but not damaging as it doesn't land solidly. Tasha throws her own forehead forward with a jerk as the strike lands, hitting Amber on the side of the jaw and rocking the other woman in surprise. Tasha shifts her grip and twists her hips, dropping Amber to the ground with her arm in front of her chest, and the other woman huffs out her breath painfully as Tasha's elbow drops hard onto her solar plexus.

Toes planted, Tasha lunges low and delivers a sharp elbow to Amber's chin, the second strike to the jaw in a second and the woman goes limp at the blow. Tasha has her left knee on Amber's stomach and has risen up to deal the next blow in the combo but stops as the body below her goes loose. Her right arm high, she takes a deep, steadying breath and relaxes as she raises her eyes and looks around at the shapeshifters surrounding her. A memory surfaces in her mind, holding a bloody knife in hand and Danny, the former Cat Alpha bleeding at her feet while surrounded by her Clan. Images of his body strung up, bleeding as he died slowly on the cross trees of a grounded Viking longboat cause her to shake her head while banishing the images and thoughts, not from disgust but from the feel of satisfaction it had brought her then, just as she wants to do the same now.

She rises smoothly to her feet and walks to Richard without a backward glance, a smile on his lips that matches the twinkle in his eyes. As she walks, the shapeshifters around her lower themselves to a knee, bowing their heads, showing respect to the winner and acknowledging her as Alpha.

"Any issues?" he asks, tilting his head as he looks at her, his eyes serious now.

"Her jaw is bruised, not broken. She will be able to fight tomorrow," she says with a nod, confirming that she had done as they had discussed and not used excessive force.

He nods in response, and glances around at over a hundred shapeshifters nearby, and quirks an eyebrow slightly at her to which she twitches the corner of her mouth in a smile, the adrenaline of the fight wearing off.

"Stand," Richard calls loudly, and everyone rises, but Tasha speaks before they can start to disperse.

"I was gone for a little while, and had to recover," she says loudly, everyone listening and attentive. "But I _am_ back. I am your Nimir-ra, and you can count on me in the battle ahead, because I will be counting on you, too. We fight and die together, no matter what. We are one family. We are the Horde."

She doesn't say the words in a declaring tone, as Richard would do, but softens their tone, encouraging them and smiling by the end of her statement, causing the group to relax.

"See that Amber is tended and have her brought to me when she is done with Clan Heavy," Richard says to William, who nods and walks to take care of that while Tasha and he leave to return to the command post nearby.

"Actions speak louder than words," Tasha says thoughtfully as they walk side by side.

"They almost always do," Richard agrees with a nod, glancing at her with a crooked smirk.

She stops and turns to him, reaching up to his slightly higher chin and cradles his face in her hands, then leans in and gently rubs her nose on his, then kisses him gently on the lips, her eyes closed. He has his hands on her hips, and she takes a deep breath as she opens her eyes and looks across the short distance at his, amber flecks of light dancing in them.

"You're welcome," he says in a low voice, amusement in it as she steps back and they continue to the tent, hand in hand.

Richard doesn't move from where he sits in his small tent when the guard calls, what he would have considered in his time in the Army as a tent meant to be used as a checkpoint leading into a larger headquarters tent. It's small, the only advantage over the smaller two man tents the rest of the Horde is using is the hieght of it, allowing him to stand with a few feet of clearance, though the square footage is no greater than the smaller tents his people are using. He's sure that the Mercs, contractors and military are judging him in some way or another due to his lack of opulence and grandeur, in one way or another. He should care, but in many ways he does not, and know that those who judge him on such things will reveal themselves sooner because of his preferences.

He mentally shakes the quick mental aside away as he listens to what the guard is saying from a dozen yards away, awake and ready as he lies on the small mat on the ground. He had dozed last night, but not slept, knowing the attack would commence tonight or tomorrow night, and wanting, needing, to be ready for it. Now that it has arrived, his is unsurprised, though curious as to how it will differ from what he had planned for and expected, because the enemy always gets a vote, and when it is cast, it often costs his people their lives. He is very interested in ensuring that he pays the lowest cost possible while still winning the day.

"The Guardsmen report contact on the Avenue of Approach labeled Cowpens," the guard calls from her post, announcing it after hearing the report from a further guard, a verbal, human announcing system he has put in place to keep leaders and the people in his camp appraised of the situation and to prepare for the future.

Richard has rolled to his knees and risen to his feet in front of his armor as the report is finished, raising his voice to call out even as he reaches for his breastplate and armor.

"All hands to arms!" he calls solidly and easily, ready for this moment. "The enemy has taken the bait and we shall show them how we make war, the amateurs that they are to the professionals that we be."

His tone is easy and firm, and he can hear a number of the Mercs and Shapeshifters chuckle in his vicinity, and knowing that a number of the contractors, mostly Autumn's less experienced people, are looking to his own folks for reassurance and guidance.

He has fastened the last of his armor into place and walks out of his tent to find Hermano and Will standing in their own armor and waiting, his lieutenants for the fight to come.

"That seems undeserving," he comments as he walks past them and the take up positions at his sides and a step back. "You are much more than that. Hermano, remind me of the title you have right now."

"Deputy Security Chief," he responds immediately, glancing at William. "Will is the Chief, with Mitchell as our boss."

"Too small," Richard says with a shake of his head and a frown, stopping and turning to the two, facing them directly. "You are Captains, nothing less. Deputy Chief and Chief is not enough. Fifteen man teams each, at least. Draw them up and bring them to myself for approval. I won't have some butter bar lieutenant trying to boss you around."

"Sir," both respond with a nod, each thinking over the list of folks they want in their detail as Richard turns and leads them further into the camp and the National Guard Tactical Operations Center, or TOC.

Richard enters the TOC without a glance at the private at the entrance with a clipboard for visitors to sign, Will peeling off to deal with the soldier and his sergeant, Hermano at his side as he pauses and takes in the sight of the Brigade's Operations Center. He is thoroughly unimpressed by the sight, a map spread over a table with pushpins placed in, but without annotations or details filled in, so a glance means little to whoever looks at it. He knows the situation on the ground well enough to know the colors of the pins are not properly coordinated to mean anything, and steps to where the Colonel is rising from a chair he has been occupying next to a harried Captain that is trying to keep the boards updated with friendly and enemy locations, as well as ammo counts and support availability. He has a mental flashback to when he had read the book _Band of Brothers_ , and what the Command Post in World War 2 must have looked like, though this one is far less organized and efficient.

"I sent you my report, we have this under control," the Colonel says with a frown as he works his wad of dip from one cheek to another, giving a general wave at the map beside him. "Just some recon elements trading fire," he says with a casual tone that his shrug does not quite match up with, Richard's experience with shapeshifters and their focus on body language giving him a leg up in that department.

"Good to hear you have it under control," Richard says, looking over the map and picking out the location of the Cavalry Squadron's Charlie company, a light cavalry unit with not vehicles, the location matching up to his own reports. "Let me know if it looks like you will be decisively engaged. I want this fight to be on our terms, not theirs."

"I'll let you know how it develops," the Colonel says with a nod, not actually confirming Richard's order.

He lets it slide as he walks out of the TOC, and once a dozen yards away and unheard by the Guardsmen he speaks low to Will at his side, "Phase three is in the final stages, send the word to initiate phase four. The initial fight will be joined by ten this morning, I think, the main battle around dusk, if they delay as I expect they will. Make sure the Vohls are ready, and tell Autumn before anyone else. She needs to be the voice of this."

Will nods and peels off in a jog to Autumn's tent, Hermano staying at his side as he walks back into his portion of the camp, pausing to give words of encouragement to the contractors, Mercs and members of the Horde as he passes.

Autumn blinks hard in the morning light and looks around groggily as the bell is rung in the camp about ten yards from the flap of her own tent. Her brother had been the morning person of the family, whereas she, like any civilized person, needed coffee to jumpstart herself into the day. She rolls to her side and swings her feet from the low cot she had slept on as she hears someone bellow out a report in front of her tent and she rubs her eyes to clear them of sleep. She reaches for her leather sandals as she mentally recalls which area coincided with Cowpens, cursing in the back of her head that her brother needed to rename everything during the planning part of doing the job. If it has a name normally, why can't they just call it that? No, they have to give it a secret name, and confuse even the people in the know.

She sighs as she finishes tying on her sandals and glances around her tent, larger than Rich's, but still not all that large, about ten feet by ten. She reaches over and pulls the belt with numerous pouches for combat spell casting, knowing she will eventually have to don the heavy steel armor she'd used before in her duel for the battle to come, but not wanting to waste her energy on wearing and carrying it yet. She pulls the silken robe over her jeans and white t-shirt and belt, the grey fabric nearly shimmering in the dim light as she belts it into place along her shoulders, then steps to the flap of her tent with a sigh.

She is slightly surprised to find Rachel, a were-fox from the Xiang clan that has become her assistant and aide, as well as link to the Horde's network of information, with cup of steaming cup of coffee in hand.

"Morning, boss," the younger woman says with a smile, her green eyes twinkling at her from under dark eyebrows and olive skin. "Heard the news?"

"Yeah," she says with a nod, blowing on the brew and inhaling the amazing scent of fresh coffee. "Has he made any calls yet?"

"Not yet, but I think we'll get something in the next few minutes, after he's got a feel from the Guard's side," Rachel says with a half shrug.

"It'll take, what, three hours for us to ride to that area, if it looks solid, right?" she asks, mentally reviewing what she knows about the battle plan Rich had laid out for her.

"Three by horse, one if we go by air," the shapeshifter says with a nod, then turns her head sharply and nods as a quartet of others approach up a lane in the tents of the camp, members of Autumn's Covens and Wizards, what she has named the Congress.

"Not what I need today," Autumn mutters to herself as she covers her mouth with her coffee mug and taking a sip of the hot liquid.

"But the battle we must fight before the real battle is joined," Rachel murmurs beside her just loud enough for her to hear, and she blesses her brother for a moment in assigning the slightly younger but obviously world wise woman to her side.

"Good morning, everyone," Autumn says with a grin and a nod as she looks at the four leaders from the different sections of Houston's magic users. "I see you've all heard the reports the Khan has spread around the camp."

"I know he's your brother, and all, but is this really the best course of action to take?" the man in the lead asks, his broad shoulders set in a firm and confident demeanor, his posture screaming "alpha male" to anyone with eyes and half a brain.

Autumn takes a moment to tilt her head and blink slowly as she stares at him, the silence stretching for an uncomfortable moment as Rachel glowers at him from her side with a barely inaudible snarl in her throat. After a moment of uncomfortable silence the man clears his throat and glances at the other three with him and nods at Autumn with some respect, though superficial and skin deep.

"What I mean, ma'am, is that we don't know what the battle plan is," he says, glancing at the others for support with a shrug as he turns back to her, the two younger folks, the young wizard and the dragon worshiper frowning in uncertainty as the older man in a dark robe and heavy chain around his neck and waist looks at her with a critical expression.

"We can better support a plan we know and understand than one that is a mystery to us," the young wizardly looking man says, his black bowl cut making him look younger to Autumn's eyes as he glances to the others from beneath his square glasses, pausing on the dragon worshiping woman.

"I know my people would be happier knowing where and how we will help the fight ahead," the young woman says with a duck of her head at Autumn, not making eye contact. "A lot of us don't have combat experience. It'd settle a lot of folks' nerves if we knew what to expect, what will come next."

Autumn takes a deep breath at her words, disliking the Algerian man who continuously undercuts her leadership, but unable to find fault in the others' concerns.

"You're right, it would be easier if we all know what will happen next, so we can prepare for it, and be ready," Autumn agrees, nodding to the two younger, then fixing the Algerian man with her own hard gaze. "But in the real world, in real combat, things don't go as planned. We hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. The worst case is that something we don't expect will happen. The Khan knows this, but he also knows things I don't. Without knowing what he knows, I can't second guess him, we have to trust him. He's in charge, and he knows what he's doing."

"Does he?" the Algerian asks again, his French accent prominent as he arches an artful black eyebrow over his beaked nose. "I know he is kin to you, you may not see that he is out of his depth. I am concerned about placing my faith in a man whose military experience only ranged to thirty or forty men, not thousands."

"Then you should read more frequently," Autumn chides him after finishing another sip of her coffee. "He led thousands in the taking of New Orleans, and I was there, as he maneuvered thousands of NeoVikings, Navy, Marines and Army Rangers to defeat the entrenched army in the city."

"A single instance does not make one an expert," the man counters with a slow shake of his head and politic frown.

"You're right, it doesn't," she allows with a thoughtful frown, looking at him intently now. "So show me your list of combat proven experiences that places you in a position to judge another on how to fight a battle and defeat an entrenched foe as my brother has. He has done so against overwhelming odds and succeeded. Tell me again where you have done likewise, more often than he, and places you in a position to judge him as wanting in this area of expertise."

The man shifts uncomfortably and glances at the others without making eye contact, unable to meet her challenge, and after a breath as he rallies his thoughts, she speaks into it, looking at the others with a calm, confident expression.

"I know this is not an area that most of you have experience in, and you are worried, scared even, of what will happen when we finally meet this army that has invaded our country," she says firmly as she looks at them, her hands easily clasped over the mug of coffee and exuding a sense of motherly calm speaking to rowdy children.

"To be honest, it's not a field that I prefer," she admits with a smile and a shake of her head. "I worship a three sided goddess, a mother, a smith and a warrior. I am much happier healing and creating than fighting and destroying. My brother, the Khan, is a true warrior through and through, and though he wears other masks, he is above all a soldier, a leader of men in combat. He knows warfare, and he knows better than I what is likely to happen in the battle to come."

She hands her mug to Rachael, who takes it with a nod as Autumn takes a step forward and her motherly demeanor fades away to one more akin to that Richard uses on the battlefield, a commander addressing their troops.

"The battle will be joined soon, the war for our land fought, and Brighid will be honored upon the battlefield," she says, her tone hard and ringing down the trails of the camp and causing those around them to pause in their own individual preparations for the conflict to come. "We will win the day, honor and glory will be reaped upon the folly of our enemies, and any who stand in our way will join the defeated as the Morrigan reaps them from the battlefield."

She had ranged her eyes on all around her as she spoke, though now she rests her gaze on the man who has bucked her leadership since forming the Congress and uniting the smaller magic users of the Houston area. His dark eyes meet hers unflinchingly for a fraction of a breath and then looks downward as he nods and bows slightly with a bend of his knees.

"It is as you say, Priestess, I am no expert, and the Khan knows more than I," he says, and her scowling face resting on his head for a moment longer before turning to the others who have also looked down and bowed in turn, her expression softening.

"I know it is hard, but trust me, and trust him," she says with a small smile at the two younger leaders of the Congress and a nod to the grey haired eldest. "Our lives are on the line as well, since he and I will both be in the front line, and at risk. We are very cognizant of any risks we take."

"May the goddess guide you," the young woman says with a short bow, the dragon pendant on her necklace jingling slightly at the movement, though her voice is strained in nervousness.

Richard is running beside the others in his security team as they keep pace with the horses ridden by the humans of the group in the advance of the Guard main body. He'd received reports from his scouts, not from the Guard's recon elements, but from those of the Nation, who are his deep scouts and have been feeding him information since the beginning of the Mexican invasion. Everyone had been focused on the Ptactors flying overhead and their attention had been drawn there, both his allies and enemies, the flying mounts a new dynamic that the military and other forces haven't had to deal with much. They'd been so focused on his blatantly public announcement of them and their ability to overfly safely that they'd neglected to look at the Natives of the land, the Nation's mixed population of humans and shapeshifters, and their knowledge of the land that is far superior to anyone else's.

So Richard knows that the Recon Squadron's Charlie Company, a dismounted cavalry unit of about eighty soldiers, are forward attempting a defensive position along two low, long hills that straddle a highway that leads to Austin. But they have few heavy weapons and the unit is designed to be more mobile and to conduct recon, not heavy fighting in dug in positions like contemporary infantry is meant for, they don't have the training, the equipment or the numbers for it, being only two thirds the size of an equivalent infantry unit. The Brigade's commander has redirected one of his infantry units to reinforce, as well as one of the other Cavalry companies, which has vehicles and horses, allowing them more mobility and firepower, if the tech stays up. If the magic crashes into the world soon the unit will lose that advantage, which Richard knows it will thanks to Tony's reports through the mirror at the halfway point of any given magic or tech wave.

The group he is moving with is moving along the low area ten kilometers east of the embattled recon units trying to hold the highway, the bulk of his shapeshifters, his recon teams organized by Adam having met back up and reintegrating into the forces directly under his command, over fifteen hundred including contractors, magic users and Mercenaries. His teams had accomplished their task, having led the Mexicans to this route where the recon troopers had encountered them, and the Guard commander had acted just as Richard had predicted, reinforcing and choosing this as the fighting ground in a movement to contact engagement. Richard doesn't like the odds in the battle between the Guard and the Mexicans, the scouts not having a good defensive position, lacking heavy weapons, fatigued from movement and action, and facing an enemy that outnumbers them over ten to one, the main Mexican thrust following this vanguard unit of around a thousand soldiers.

Add in the fact that the Mexican unit is mixed in a similar fashion to those directly under his command, not including the Guard, as a mix of shapeshifters, magic users and normal humans, and the scouts and reinforcements rushing to help them are outmatched. Richard signals to those around him as they reach the pair of Native Americans from the Nation ahead on the dirt road they are following, signaling to their left at an angle, where they had scouted a route to come up on the flank of the enemy positions. Richard watches as the Horde members surge forward and into the trees and high grass, melting through them like their animal counterparts, though wearing their human skins and their armor of preference, at the least a leather vest and jeans, though over half favor the segmented plate armor that the Khan wears. Richard slows and watches as the humans slow and their mounts pick their way through the forest, the leaders signaling to their groups to spread out with Richard as the center of the line as they advance, ten of his own security with him under Hermano, Will forward with ten of his own leading and controlling the Horde members as they take their positions and get ready for the arrival of the rest of Richard's force.

"What do you think, sis?" Richard asks as he easily picks his way through the trees next to her as her own horse noisily plods through the underbrush.

"I wish I had more time to prepare," she says in a low voice that doesn't carry far, but he can hear easily. "It's not a good way to bless a battlefield, after the fight has already started. And to do so with mobile supplies. Normally I'd prepare the place I'd do the blessing from for a few hours and with more ingredients and prep work. I don't like it."

"Can you do it or not?" Richard asks in a flat tone, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Of course I can do it," she replies testily. "You're going to fight the damn battle whether I do or not. If I don't it's a wasted opportunity and the goddess will not be pleased."

"Good," he says with a firm nod, glancing skyward. "And your call to the Air Forces?"

"I have another making the call," Autumn says with a nod, the silver hood of her robe down, her hair tied in a tight, thick braid on her head and the edges of her steel armor glinting at her neck. "She's a dragonite worshiper, and with the Ptactor's recent modifications you've had me do on most of the ones we brought, she can reach out to them and guide them here. Not nearly as well as I, but well enough until I recover from my blessing and take control of them."

"How does Brighid feel about the whole Mother of Dragons, thing, anyway?" he asks, curiosity in his voice as he tilts his head to the side and glancing at her while his rifle remains ready.

"I am bringing creatures made for war to a battlefield in her name to cast out the foes who would dare to invade our land," she says with a dry chuckle. "She recalls all too well how the Irish, the Scots and others were unable to stop invaders to their lands, and how they were made low and small compared to their former glory. She is eager to unleash the wroth upon wicked."

Her words become harsher as she speaks, nearly snarling the last with anger and a low growl in her throat as she says them, her jaw set as she finishes.

"Be careful sis, you're sounding like a High Priestess," Richard says with a feral grin of his own up at her.

Autumn takes a deep breath with a firm expression forward before continuing, "I've never considered myself powerful. Only strong enough, good enough. But not today. Today I'm the Goddess' chosen one, and I will show everyone why Brighid was not just the goddess of the hearth and home but of the fire and the sword. Why she was feared above all else and why she was the one who wore the pants among the gods, and was their queen."

"Forward the axe and the flame," Richard agrees with a nod, which brings Autumn's eyes to his. "Wait for my word before you unleash hell. You'll want to do it before I'm ready for it, but don't. Wait."

Autumn scowls but nods, "Don't wait too long, little brother. I have some angst to get out and I finally don't have to hold back."

"I'm looking forward to that," Richard says with a chuckle, then trots ahead of the advancing line to join the shapeshifters to the front and get a look at the battlefield.

Davis shouts at his Cav Scouts to dig faster as bullet snap past their position, which is just behind and out of sight of the positions forward. The CO had them take hasty cover then ordered them to engage, and they had nothing more to hide behind than trees, scrub brush and the occasional rock the size of his head. He and some of the other sergeants had grabbed some of the bigger guys and pulled them back under the supervision of the First Sergeant, and are hastily digging hasty fighting positions for the unit to fall back to. The lines of fire on the highway aren't great, but it will provide actual protection from incoming fire and even from mortar fire, of which is likely to start dropping on their positions soon if the Mexicans are even half as good as they've heard.

"Goddamn it, Smitty!" he shouts at the private next to him. "You can't fit in that, go deeper. A foot and a half deep, dirt to the front _and_ sides."

"I'm digging as fast as I can, Sergeant!" the big nineteen year old yells back over the sound of gunfire twenty yards to their front, directed down the hill at the Mexican vehicles on the gravel and asphalt road below them.

The gunfire suddenly stops, not just from their own positions, but from down on the highway, and Davis curses luridly and loudly, the tech having crashed and magic now ruling the world and the battlefield. He turns and shouts for Smith to go help with the casualties, their platoon having four dead and five wounded, one of which is screaming, since he'd taken a gut shot and they hadn't given him morphine yet. He shakes his head to clear the noise from the gunfire and explosions as he trots forward to the LT's position, but a deep rumble starts to echo through the low crescent of the road and up the shallow hills, and he can feel the vibration up his feet and in his chest through the air.

"Brace yourselves! Damn Spics are calling up something nasty!" the LT shouts down the line, the West Point Officer and Ranger School graduate a thinly veiled racist against anyone not pure white stock.

Sergeant First Class Torres, the Platoon's senior NCO trots up to where the LT is against a thick tree for cover, arriving as Davis does. Torres' dark brows are furrowed together and he starts to say something to the LT as he raises a hand to the length of the hill, but before he can speak a woman's voice echoes over them. The voice is fierce and matronly, and speaks in a language Davis doesn't understand, but reminds him of the Saint Patrick's day festivals he'd attended as a child, though the image conjured in his head is not the kid friendly images of leprechauns or fairies, but the more dire and dangerous briefings he'd received from the military on possible dangerous creatures and monsters of lore.

The voice rings out in a loud cadence, rolling over the land, causing the leaves and dirt to tremble at the sound, and despite the sound and knowing he should be organizing his troops, his eyes and all those around him are drawn to the woman standing on another low hill south of them, rising up on a stand of rocks pushing up from the ground beneath her. She's over a kilometer away, hard to judge height at this distance, but she wears metal plate armor with a flowing silvery robe billowing around her sides and back as she raises a staff high in the air, and though he can't see her mouth at this distance, Davis knows in his soul that she is the one chanting. Her dark hair and tanned skin are obvious, and from the sound of the chanting, she is not from the Mexican side of this fight, so he is glad for that, though that is only an afterthought as he is still enraptured with the echoing voice rolling over him.

She slams the staff into the stone beside her, and a he can see chips of stone fly from the impact into the distance before him, shooting like bullets across the green fields in all directions from her to strike the distant low hills with flashes of white light that penetrate the partially overcast afternoon light. The woman falls to her knees, and he can tell as she looks to the sky that she is praying, and in the air in front of her appears a ghostly apparition a dozen yards tall that etches itself into his mind for its beauty, it's motherly demeanor and its terrible fierceness, though if asked, he would be unable to actually describe the features of the woman depicted, except to say she was beautiful, fey, and with fiery red hair.

The semi-transparent figure in armor and a one handed Celtic longsword speaks for a moment in the same lilting brough as the woman who had been chanting before, sweeping her blade over the road and shallow valley where the Mexicans stare up at her with fear and horror in their eyes. The image flashes and Davis has to blink his eyes and shake his head to clear it, glancing around as he does to see the other soldiers with him doing the same, none having been immune to the display. Before Torres can say anything to the LT about moving the men or arranging the wounded and the battle line, a roar sounds through the valley and up the ridgelines that sends a primal chill up his spine and causes all those around him to pause in their slight movement started after the appearance of the goddess, or whatever had manifested above them all. Davis manages to catch the eye of one of his squad mates nearby, the only shapeshifter in his group and a were-rat, having helped immensely in digging the fighting position. The young man's swarthy face doesn't frown and cringe as the others do, but grins widely as he looks down the valley, and Davis follows his gaze to where a tree on the hilltop not far from the woman in grey is being thrown into the air in an arc over twenty yards high.

In the small open area created in a line of trees, he can see a man surrounded by a dozen or so others emerge into the open, though he sees movement and other people moving along the highest rise of land about a hundred yards or so from the road, their elevation about ten or twenty yards uphill overall. The man holds high a sword that glints in the light and roars another challenge, a declaration, to those in the valley, and then leads a rush of the newcomers down the slope and onto the highway and valley below them. Torres blinks and nods beside him as he turns to the LT, who is still staring at the man in old armor that is Asian in its look though the man himself is obviously a white guy.

"Sir, we need to settle in front of those dug positions, get ready to hold this ground against a charge," Torres says with an authoritative tone that still conveys the message of a suggestion, not an order. "Those guys in the valley are going to try and run away, either the way they came, or straight into us. We don't need to be too forward, we just need to be well dug in. Alpha Troop should be here soon to reinforce, according to what we got over the radio not long ago."

"We've got positions ready," Davis chimes in with a nod at the were-rat, Specialist Jimenez. "Say the word and the whole platoon's got good fighting positions to fight from, and we can start working on trenches to connect them if you want to get ready for when the tech returns and the guns work again."

"It's a good call, LT," Torres says with a bit of authority, and the officer nods, to which the sergeants turn and run to their soldiers to make it happen as though he'd given a firm, solid order.

Davis is spreading his squad out and stops next to Jimenez, who had pulled out a heavy machete from his belt, his weapon of choice for when the magic rules the world, most of the rest of the squad stringing shortbows and readying their own short swords or preparing spears.

"You know the guy who was making that noise down at the Mexicans?" he asks, glancing at where yells are coming from the highway, the sounds of a battle joined, the newcomers against the advancing column.

"Yeah, sergeant, I know him," Jimenez chuckles, looking carefully at the edge of his blade, then checking where he has a pair of long knives in his belt as back up.

"Who is the guy with the roar?" another in the squad asks, finishing unfolding the collapsible shaft of his spear and locking the joints in place.

"He's the Khan," Jimenez says as though that explains everything, then stops as they just look at him with blank expressions. "C'mon, you're kidding me right? You live in the state for god's sake, and you never heard of him?"

"Farm needs tending, we don't have much time for news outside the county," Davis says with a shake of his head, mentally recalling the issues he's having with his farm's tractor. "So he's bad news or something?"

"Not if he's on our side, sergeant," Jimenez says with a shake of his head down at the valley where roars, howls and screams rise up from the battle. "He's the leader of the shapeshifters within a few hundred miles of Houston, and works a lot with the Vikings."

"Wait, wait, wait," the private says with a shake of his head, and a wave. " _All_ the shapeshifters? I thought they only had groups, like, two or three families large. They call them a clan or something."

"A Pack," Davis corrects, shaking his head. "And that's what they used to do. They've been working and banding together more, not that different than us normal folks, I hear."

"We are normal folks, sergeant," Jimenez says in a low, solid tone with a glance at the other, higher ranking man. "And yeah, he's in charge of all of us. Helped my ma keep the house after the storm hit and the insurance company wouldn't pay."

"I didn't think she was a shifter," Davis says carefully, brow wrinkled in thought.

"She's not," he replies with a shake of his head. "But she's family. So my Alpha found out, and put us in for aide from the hardship fund. Had a half dozen folks from the Rat Clan stop by one weekend and fix what needed done, all it cost us was food, which ma always foists on everyone anyway. So now she doesn't have to worry about the roof or leaky windows."

"Sounds like a mean contractor," the private comments as he looks down at the valley where another roar rolls out across the valley from.

"He used to be an Army Ranger," Jimenez says with a dry chuckle, squatting and leaning back against a tree and looking down at the battlefield that has stopped moving towards them. "Still does contracts with the Merc Guild. He's a bad mother fucker, and I wouldn't want to fight him. I've seen some of his challenge fights to keep what he got in the Horde, the one against that were-lion was just fucking scary to watch."

"Glad he's on our side," Davis says, looking downhill with his bow in hand and a nod as the sound in the valley starts to fade away as the fight down below draws to a close.

Richard rolls to the side on the highway, the first of his side to reach it, his dodge putting him out of alignment of a flash of sickly yellow magic that splashes where he had just been, acid from the smell of it. He lunges forward with Krigsherre in hand and slices upwards at an angle, cutting the engine block of a military truck in half and spraying shrapnel from the blow in an arc to his front, having pushed an explosion of magic into the blade in conjunction with the strike. The thunder of the hit causes others on the other side to stumble, and his team darts in with vicious single and double hits before sprinting onwards to take out those who had started to retreat down the line of vehicles. Richard jumps easily onto the wagon beside the truck, the horses dead in the traces from the recon unit's fire before the magic shift.

A quick survey of the field to see his own disposition and those of his opponent in view and he drops down and runs forward at a ground eating lope that is no more tiring than an easy walk was for him before he became a shapeshifter. He arrives at the tail end of the convoy as the last of the enemy forces are surrendering, his shapeshifters watching them intently as the human contractors, mercenaries and magic users are stripping them of armor and restraining them. Richard nods at Hermano, who is supervising the prisoners and he walks past them and peers down the highway, the land here in Texas flat with some rolling hills that they've used so far to their advantage. Doing so again will be difficult, if not impossible, so it is time to get his enemy to look at something else.

"Sarah," he says, looking to where a young woman has ridden up, her hair pulled back in some braids and tails, a bracelet on her wrist, necklace an earings all sporting dragons with a crystal of some sort within them.

The young brunette woman reins in her horse and blinks at him and around her, clenching her jaw on what Richard guesses is a reflexive attempt to vomit. Her horse picks it's way forward at Richard's whistle to come, he knowing the horse and that it is war trained, even if its rider is not.

"Are you ready to call them down?" Richard asks, tilting his head and trying for a more neutral tone than he wants to use, this a newcomer to battle and war, and his instincts to shout and order being suppressed to get her to not shut down.

"Aye," she says with a deep breath, looking around the green fields around them halfway through a mid-summer harvest. "Where do you want them called to?"

"Ahead, five kilometers down the road, three miles," he says, pointing. "I need eyes and harrying attacks. Send half ahead directly. The other half to land among the Guard's infantry, coming up behind them that we saved. They are to take on passengers, then take them in a sweeping arc to the left, south. Do you understand?"

"Aye," she says, repeating what he had said with a nod, calling the draconic Ptactors forward to split into the groups he ordered, and once on their way she chants into a large crystal in her ring, echoing the orders to a message crystal imbedded in the harness of them to relay to any troops, so they understand the orders and citing that they are from Richard, the Khan.

Richard watches with narrow eyes at the enemy formations down the highway, then as they spread out to either side, a kilometer away or so. He knows he could have him and every other shapeshifter on that enemy formation before they finish forming up, but they would be few, and his reports place those numbers at ten to one, and they'd be ready for him when they arrive. So instead he matches their array with his own, harrying them with his flyers, starting an encirclement to his left, their right, for them to react to.

He looks back to his own lines, where he can see the Recon Squadron catching up to the attempted blocking position, and behind them columns of infantry from the Guard. As he looks back two dozen forms drop from the retreating cloud cover along the sides of the column, the Ptactors to pick up troops and move them forward. If the local unit commanders take the initiative and use the orders in the harness he has given them instead of looking for guidance from their Brigade commander Richard will have nearly a hundred soldiers forward and threatening the enemy's flank on the east.

"We form the lines here," Richard shouts as he turns back to where the Horde members and his forces are moving south to where the enemy is congregating. "Will, get them sorted and arrayed. Formation Epsilon."

"Yes, Khan," Will says with a nod and turning to others nearby in charge of small or larger groups within the forces Richard is commanding, spreading the word using the other ten in the security force as runners, the shapeshifters sprinting around the battlefield to relay the orders.

"Medical forces establish back five hundred meters," Richard says to Sarah, who shakes her head in surprise at him addressing her. "The Vohls will lead that, and Autumn will want to help, but I need her here soonest, once she's recovered from the blessing. The battle is far from over, and I need her here near the front when _my_ hammer drops."

"Yes, sir," Sarah says with a puzzled frown, and he holds up a hand to which she pauses.

"Tell her that exactly," he emphasizes with a firm nod while locking eyes with her, to which she shifts uncomfortably under the gaze. "I need her here for when _MY_ hammer drops."

"Yes, sir," she says with a firmer nod, turning her horse and walking it quickly through the debris of the highway and leveled area back to where he had designated the medics to set up.

Lieutenant Colonel Flanagan curses under his breath as he kicks his horse again, fighting to get to the front of his formation of soldiers, the Recon Squadron for the Brigade. He's tall and rail thin, and is partner of a law firm out of San Antonio, not that far west from here, though he's familiar with the terrain he is riding on now. He'd ridden in a rodeo not far from here, a town called Leesville they'd passed through to get here, having competed in the calf roping and watched his daughters compete in the three barrel racing, his oldest son having ridden his first bull and been hospitalized from the experience. Though he'd been nervous and angry at the time, he's glad his son, member of the Guard as well, and in one of the Infantry Battalions, is missing this fight because he's still recuperating. Had he been lucky enough with his two daughters, both of whom are in the Guard as well, one in his Recon Squadron, the other in the Brigade Headquarters.

The youngest had railed at him last Christmas about her transfer to Headquarters, but he'd kept his peace and said nothing to claim having had a hand in it, though he had called in a favor to have her put there. She's the one of his kids actually doing well in college and likely to go to law school, like he did, years ago, after his first stint in the Army on Active Duty. His other daughter is a Squad leader in Bravo Troop, and he pushes her from his mind as he reins in his horse with three others from his headquarters as he looks down at the Troop Commander, CPT Floyd.

"Report," Flanagan says, his eyes looking past the soldiers arrayed in rows as they prepare for a melee and magic fight with bows to augment it.

"Charlie Troop took it hard, I have almost thirty dead, a bit over half that wounded, but stable," Floyd says with a shake of his bald ebony head as he pulls his camouflage boonie cap from his head, a stickler for the regulations, even if his boss isn't. "I started arrying behind and into them, Klinger's ranting about pulling back and regrouping."

Flanagan frowns at the mention of the Charlie Troop commander, a spineless hack that thinks he's a genius and is incapable of putting other people's lives at risk, especially if he's not among them.

"He's relieved," Flanagan says with a shake of his head, looking to one of the men riding with him, his Sergeant Major. "Tell Lieutenant Smith he's in command of Charlie, and he's attached to Bravo for the duration of the battle. Make it happen."

"Understood, sir," the Sergeant Major says with a nod and bare smirk, riding off with two other senior NCOs at his side.

"Floyd, shake out the line, push us up to where that Khan has a front line made up, I'm going forward to see where we can help him best," Flanagan orders the Troop Commander. "I don't know which way we'll swing, probably left, to the east, to threaten their flank on that side, it'll be a faster move, since they came from that side. I'll see if I can get some more shapeshifter scouts to help find trails for your horses along that line."

"Thanks, sir," Floyd says with a nod, looking to his men. "We'll start moving, and be ready for the order."

Flanagan kicks his horse forward again along the highway, mentally cursing the Brigade commander for committing his troopers to defend along this stretch with no advantage but surprise. He doesn't know this Khan character, if he's actually as good as some of his shapeshifter troops seem to think he is, but he can pray he's not as dense and stupid as he current boss. If he's not, he's pretty sure he's about to fight another Alamo and go down in history as a major loss in Texas history, a thing he does not want to be recognized for.

Autumn fights not to groan as a cool wetness on her face brings her back to consciousness, her mind locked into a state where she knows she must be the High Priestess, and as such shouldn't show weakness. The thought is passive and not in the front of her mind as she pulls her eyes open, squinting at the breaking clouds above, it now afternoon.

"What day is it?" she asks as she rolls to her side and pushes herself to a knee, someone holding her arm, and she glances to the side to see it is Stan, and lets him help her to her feet.

"Same day," Stan says with a smile, then nod into the distance beyond the stone outcropping she'd pulled from the earth. "You consecrated a lot of ground. Too much, I think. The battle is being joined about two kilometers south, you blessed more than twice that in that direction, and the same to the west."

"It'll be enough," Autumn says with a small smile despite the pain her head as she nods.

"Richard sends that you should go to the front as soon as you can," Stan says, looking at the Dragonite woman nearby who is a leader among the Congress and who she knows the message had to have come from. "I'm to set up the hospital behind."

"He said you need to wait until his hammer falls," Sarah says as Stan pauses for a breath, rushing into it. "He was specific about that, had me repeat it. That you wait for _his_ hammer to fall."

"Oh, this is going to be jolly fun," Autumn says with a low chuckle as she brings herself to her full height, and though not towering, with her armor and robe now shimmering in the breeze as she steadies herself, she now looks somewhat imposing rather than weak or hurting.

"Are you okay?" Stan asks low at her side, and she turns to him with a lopsided smile and pats his cheek softly with her gauntleted hands.

"I'm fine, I come from good stock," she assures him, walking to her horse, Applejack, and pulls herself up despite the twinge of pain in her back, she must have fallen oddly and pulled something.

"Those of the Congress who wish to fight, come with me," she says in a firm tone to those around her, she can see that rather than move forward many had held back around her, likely unsure what to do without firm leadership.

Autumn wonders for a moment if this is what Richard feels like when he looks around at those less brave than him, those ready to run to the hills and flee when the enemy arrives at the gates. Well, she is not of that folk, she shares blood of the Khan, and she may not be a tiger, but she is a priestess of battle. At least today she is.

"I need to speak with the Khan!" Flanagan shouts as he pulls his horse to a stop on the edges of the three lanes that make this state highway, needing the traction to stop the horse from its near gallop.

"I'm here," comes from his side, and he turns to see a man in red and black armor, some dull silvery highlights, but not that distinctive from anyone else's among the shapeshifters he's seen.

He's five and a half feet tall and despite the stocky build and rough, average features, the man's grey eyes flecked with orange gold penetrate Flanagan's own, convincing him in a glance that this is man who commands. Not leads, not manages, but commands.

"Lieutenant Colonel Flanagan, Squadron Commander," he says simply as he identifies himself and nods to the Khan of the Houston and Texas. "Where do you need us?"

"How many are mobile, and ready to move?" the man says matter-of-factly, then turns and gestures to his rear. "I have a hospital being set up a few hundred meters back. You can drop your wounded there. I promise that no one will bother your dead until we collect them after the battle, when we've won the day."

Flanagan pauses as he works the reins and stirrups of his horse, a good mount, but never been great with shapeshifters, and he takes in the statements the Shapeshifter leader had said after his question. He guarantees nothing will disrupt his dead, but also talks of victory as a foregone conclusion.

"I'm more concerned of surviving at this point," Flanagan says with a shrug and shake of his head. "They've got us outnumbered, and though we took out their vanguard, they've a lot more in their main body then us."

The man is shaking his head, even as Flanagan points out the enemy's strengths.

"They think they do, and in some ways they are right, but in the critical point, they are wrong, and don't know it, yet," he disagrees. "How many can you bring up?"

"I've got about two thirds of my Alpha and Bravo Troops, and the remains of Charlie attached to Bravo," Flanagan says with a glance at the lieutenant at his side who his keeping his reports and messages, who nods.

"I want them to follow scouts I've got waiting for them, they're all Native Americans, from the Nation," the Khan says, gesturing north to the approaching scouts. "I need them to flank around, wide, but not too wide, to the east. I want them to threaten and harry that flank. Don't engage, threaten and harry, maybe a few charges of opportunity if you've the horse for it."

"Bravo may not, but I know Alpha will," Flanagan says with a slow nod and a frown of thought. "But they'll push hard in the middle, and reorient. We can't hold against that."

The man standing a few yards away and below him from his seat on the horse tilts his head to the side and finally looks at him, studying him for a long breath before breaking the moment of tension.

"Are you familiar with the Second Battle of Caana?" he asks, eyebrow raised.

Flanagan blinks, shaking his head and shrugging, "It was years ago, but in general. They did something similar in, uh, Cowpens, in the Revolutionary War."

"Exactly," the Khan says with a grin that reminds the Lieutenant Colonel that this man turns into a tiger. "You can't see the other pieces, but they are coming, and when they hammer falls, you will know. That is when you must be an anvil, the hammer."

Flanagan stares at the man, the Khan, for a long moment, three breaths as he thinks this over, then looks at the ground in front of him to the south, then to the east where he is being ordered, affording only a glance to the west before returning to the Khan.

"How can I trust you?" Flanagan ask blatantly. "My Commander doesn't like you or your kind. Says you don't care about me and my troopers."

"I care about all of us, we're all human," the man says immediately, frowning in anger, then lifting his head. "But beyond that, you and I both went to the same school. Started in the hills of Darby, the Mountains of Georgia, walked the deserts in Utah and finished in the swamps of Florida. I swore an oath, and though others forgot, I never did."

Flanagan looks at him for another breath then nods, his mind made up.

"You get your infantry in place, and give us a call, and the cavalry will be there," the LTC says with a firm nod.

"Sua Sponte," Richard says with a nod in return, and the Cavalry officer echoes him, leading his troops into their positions in the east.

General Joachim Rodriquez frowns as he looks at where his vanguard had been, but now where the local forces have amassed, having finished killing or capturing the entirety of the advanced guard. Not his best troops, but not the dredges either, and his opponent had swept over them fairly easily. He looks to his east and west, seeing that it would difficult to impossible to do another flanking maneuver at his current position unobserved. Not to say this Khan will try to outflank him again, or that he won't, as reports he has reviewed on the man all agree he is unpredictable, and that the impossible should be expected when confronting him. Well, two can play the game of surprise and accomplishing the impossible.

"Send word back to the priests, conduct the sacrifice immediately, battle will be joined in an hour and it is crucial they put the battle on our terms," he orders to one of his runners, who ducks his head and runs away to relay the message.

He watches the Americans start to form up across from him, a mixed lot of bastards and mongrels, even if they have lasted this long against his countrymen's attempts to push further north. Rodriguez glances to his side where the leader of the Priesthood watches him as well as the enemy across the field. He chafes under their gaze, and though he is loathe to admit it, the benefits they have given his soldiers cannot be denied. His soldiers not tiring, feeling no pain from the march, and most importantly for the battle to come, the ability to see in the night as though day.

But the man's eyes disturb him, not because they are dark like most men's from his lands, or because they are a color of any man from the land. No, the man's eyes are a kaleidoscope of ranging colors, shifting and glowing and shifting, like the rumors of the lights in the northern sky.

Richard looks on with a satisfied expression as the front lines of his force finish straightening out and filling up. The Guard unit had kept their cohesion, which was good, since it meant that the Recon Squadron could move quickly to the left flank to try and encircle from that direction as planned. His front line has fewer Guard Infantry as he'd like, the vehicles, carts and horses pulling them stuck back a few miles and the men having to dismount and move forward on foot. He'd ordered them forward at a trot, but only God above knows if the commander of that Battalion of infantry will do it, or consult with the Brigade commander, who will likely argue and drag his feet. Time will tell.

He's satisfied, though, because the Mercs, magic users and contractors he'd brought along are arrayed as planned in their teams and groups. He'd considered how to organize them over many planning sessions for way back when he considered it a possibility that this would happen. He'd considered segregating them, keep melee fighters with same, archers with archers and magic users with their kind and then spreading the groups of types across his front or concentrating them as the battlefield array seemed necessary at the time. It was talking with Autumn not long after she arrived here that made him adopt the form they are following now. Groups of six to twelve people, each a mixed group of melee fighters, ranged experts, magic users and shapeshifters mixed in amongst each other.

It spreads his abilities across his entire front, and sacrifices the freedom to concentrate any one type's expertise, but gives great flexibility to the lowest level practical. His experience is to give more flexibility to the lowest level to ensure victory, because as much as everyone thinks he knows what will happen, he doesn't. He has ideas of what could happen, and he prepares for them, he makes contingencies to fall back on when they fail to cover other possibilities, but he doesn't actually know what will happen. Autumn says it's luck, and though he'd corrected her, she has a hard time believing his words when he says, "Luck is preparation meeting opportunity, nothing more".

A crack of thunder on the clearing afternoon sky makes him look to his front and he scowls as a dark fog rises up from behind the enemy lines, rising up above the distant clouds.

"What is that?" Will asks from beside him, eyes drawn up to where the fog is thickening and interposing itself between the sun and the ground below.

"The signal to start forward," he says evenly, then shouts orders to those around him that ripple down the line.

As the order is relayed, a trumpet is blared by a signaler at Richard's side, the orders relayed through it to others along the line among the shapeshifters who know the meaning of the calls.

"We are to fight in the shade?" Will asks Richard tentatively, remembering a quote from a famous book and battle.

"No, we will fight under a rainbow," Richard chuckles in response, stepping in front of the line and leading the line forward to advance on the enemy.

Autumn scowls as she watches the false eclipse coalesce above them in the sky, above even the clouds.

"That looks bad," Rachel says with a frown beside her, looking up from the ground, compared to Autumn on her horse as she rides to where Richard is advancing on the enemy.

"It's very bad," Autumn says with a frown and a growl. "I can't dispel that without a couple hours of preparation, a circle and at least two others."

"Oh," Rachel says with raised eyebrows, then frowns, starts to speak and stops, shaking her head.

"Out with it," Autumn says from her seat, having seen the consternation of her aide-de-camp, as Richard had named her.

"The Khan had said not to worry if it got dark, there would be lights when the battle joined," she says with a confused frown. "I don't understand."

"I'm not sure I do, either," Autumn says with a sigh and a frustrated frown. "He can't help be mysterious and he can't explain it. It drives me to madness sometimes."

They move forward and Autumn is starting to have difficulty picking out the enemy's advance against them, though she can see the outline of her brother and the lead Texan groups moving alongside him, thirty yards ahead of her. She mentally curses what he's getting after when there is a sudden flash in the sky and her eyes land on a point of light that pulses then silently explodes across the nearly black sky. The light spreads into ribbons of luminous light a rainbow of colors stretching out to touch the edges of the horizon, washing the land beneath it with multicolored light almost as bright as day.

"I'm going to kill them," Autumn growls as she realizes what happened and her eyes narrow in anger.

"Who?" Rachel asks, tearing her eyes from the beautiful Aurora Borealis painted across the sky above.

"All three of them," she mutters, then kicks her horse back into motion towards where she can see the front lines are now less than a hundred yards apart and arrows and spells are now being slung back and forth.

Tony frowns and glances down at the battlefield arrayed below them as they drift into and out of the clouds thousands of feet over the ground. There had been a time not so long ago in the time of the real world that he felt he would be able to call for help if he had a problem, and in many ways that's still true, but not right now. Not this time. The Mexica Empire is attacking and invading Texas, and his father, his family and friends are down there below him fighting to keep the enemy at bay and push them back, to retake their homes.

"When did we become the cavalry?" he says with a sigh as his eyes rove the field.

"When we took up the sword," Maddie says from in front of him, his arms on her shoulders as they ride Trixie just out of sight of the enemy on the ground amid high clouds. "These days will always come, when we are the ones to make the difference in the fight, just as it did in New Orleans. And truth be told, I'm glad it's here again."

He glances at her profile as she shifts her grip on the complicated reins that connect to the Wyvern's neck, her feet down below the saddle to apply pressure to help steer from the large mount's back. Dark purple hair now braided in cornrows back from her head in preparation for the battle, left side shaved bare, and her light combat helmet, painted purple as well with a My Little Pony sticker over her left temple featuring the show's entire cast. He smiles tightly and can't really argue with her, that he is kind of glad he's doing this, even though he wishes he could just walk into his cruddy apartment and just be home. But you can't have a home if people like those fighting his family and friends are out there trying to take what they have. So they do what they decided to do over the course of their time since arriving in Houston and meeting his father, Richard, growing in his shadow. They fight back.

He watches as the darkness rises up past them from the Mexican army, to block the light of the sun from reaching the fields below. He nods to himself and checks his gear on last time, then glances at the four soldiers clipped to the sides of Trixie's saddle behind him, then back to Maddie. They'd stopped at Fort Lewis in Washington after trying to call Atticus and failing, and calling Richard instead, prepared to fight with him about getting here in time. Instead of an argument, he'd just looked at them with his usual blank expression, measuring their own faces, then nodded and told them to go to the base. A dirigible had been floating over the base and loaded with troops, and they'd flown with it to reach the battle.

The troops from the floating airship, a simple arrangement that stays aloft with either tech or magic in charge, had been deployed out last night, and not Tony or Maddie's responsibility. No, they'd taken as many extra troops as would fit on their mounts, and are preparing for a drop by Roc and Ptactor to the front line. The other flying mounts counted by the enemy and tracked as elsewhere on the battlefield, the sudden appearance of the fliers will be a shock and should allow them a few minutes to drop the soldiers on the ground and get airborne again. The Mongols would stay with the mounts, guiding them on strafing and bombing runs as opportunities arise after the drop in the enemy's flanks and rear.

Tony leans forward and places a kiss on Maddie's cheek, to which she turns and gives him a quick kiss on the lips before turning forward again.

"Show them why," she says with a fierce gleam in her eyes, and he nods in response as he turns back to the soldiers behind him.

"You guys ready?" he asks the senior of the group, a Staff Sergeant in black and grey camouflage.

"Born ready," the NCO growls back with a grin, then nods his chin at Maddie. "What did she mean? Show them why?"

"The Khan has a saying," he replies, unhooking the rings and buckles keeping him attached to the saddle while the light fades from the world. "When your kingdom is attacked, don't flee. Show them why it is your kingdom. We're going to show these guys why you don't attack America."

"Hooah!" is shouted from the four behind him as he unclips the last buckle and stands on the saddle, unhooked and free from restraint as the wyvern beats its wings slowly in the thin clouds.

"See you on the ground," Tony says, pulling his ghost mask down over his face then jumping off the side of Trixie, his black leather cloak billowing behind him as he falls to the earth.

"Was he wearing a parachute?" the Sergeant yells over the wind at Maddie's back, his eyes following where Tony's figure shrinks below them.

"No," Maddie laughs over the winds. "No, he wasn't."

"A rainbow," Will says with a nod of agreement, looking up with admiration at the winged figure trailing and spreading the light over the battlefield. "We won't be at a disadvantage due to darkness, now."

"Nope," Richard agrees. "Watch the front, it's going to get busy in a minute or so."

Tony rides the wind on his wide wings in a broad circle, looking up at where he can see dots falling from the sky, the soldiers with him having dropped out of the remaining cloud cover from the backs of their mounts. It's not a high altitude drop, but it will be a low opening one, and right into the battle lines. He's not sure it's a good idea, but his father had said it was, not because of the expertise or fight the dozen or so soldiers will add, but because of the morale boost it will bring to their own side at their arrival. Not to mention the coinciding attacks on the enemy positions he'll be dropping on them just beforehand, which would be now.

He pulls the handful of rocks from his belt as he arcs over the enemy lines and drops them one at a time, speaking a single word of release as he drops each one. He'd made these during the journey after hearing about Aunt A dropping boulders on the old Casino in the fight that had sent him to the far side of the planet. It took him a while to figure it out, time spent on the mountain, but he had, and now takes advantage of it as half ton rocks drop from the sky onto the formations below him. There are shouts of anger and surprise, as well as pain and fear as the smooth marble spheres bounce and roll after impact, spreading the devastation wrought. Their attention directed upwards, Tony drops down and releases the magic grenades he'd brought as well, these standard Army issue, and tosses them along his path a hundred feet over the enemy. They explode while still in the air, and flash with a different light each, meant more for signaling rather than damage, though still stunning and injuring some under them.

The real reason for the grenades is to mark the front line, as Maddie, the rest of his team and the soldiers who dropped are opening their chutes would need something to steer off of. That and the eyes of the enemy will be drawn to the explosions, not the other figures in the sky besides the one dropping the bombs. He arcs towards their rear and drops a few normal magic grenades which detonate as they reach the ground, and he starts to get some reaction from the ground, arrows flitting by. He swerves and dodges as he angles back to the front line and past it to the open area between the two forces, seventy yards or so separating them, where he can see Maddie and the others dropping the harnesses for their parachutes.

Tony turns sharply and then up, bleeding his speed and pulling the magic from his cloak, dropping from a couple yards up to land in a crouch. He rises up, a half dozen yards from Maddie and looks up to see familiar faces from the Merc Guild, as well as other people he knows from Houston and the Horde in the Texas lines.

"Archer?" a middle aged Merc in the front line with a shield and a double bladed axe says with surprise. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Heard there was a fight, didn't want to miss out," Tony says with a nod at the older man, known in Houston under that alias while working with the Guild, his mask familiar to those with experience.

"Got here just in time," another, more familiar voice, calls out, and Tony turns to the Khan.

"Glad to hear that," Tony says, hiding his feelings while in front of others who don't know they're family. "Where do you want us, sir?"

"Take your team to the right flank, it's going to get hot there soon, when they start to pivot," Richard says with a wave to their right. "Hold like and anvil. It has to hold."

"We'll hold," Maddie says with a grim nod, pulling her gladius from her back then following Tony as he trots off down the line to follow his orders.

Richard watches his children trot off for only a moment then turns his head back to the battle in front of him, his gaze assessing as he watches the formation of the enemy line while it advances. Their line is a mix, much like his, but with key differences, primarily in that they have fewer shapeshifters in the line, and their magic users are mostly Mayan priests in clumps of a half dozen in a group scattered just behind the lines, rather than integrated into them like his are. He watches as one such group a hundred yards distant has a flash of light wink from them and arc out and towards his own line, where his forces scatter from the impact point. A pair of his own magic users, contractors and members of the Vohls of Houston, this a white and black pair of brothers, have set their staves and face the lance of magic.

The two halt the lance of potential destruction towards them in a flare and burst that disperses out from them, and as it fades out, the white Vohl goes to his knees, while the black swings his own staff around himself and slams it on the ground, a black cloud of insects emerging from the head of the staff and streaming to the opposing group of priests. Richard sprints to that portion as the black cloud of insects die en route to their target, killed by defensive magic of the Mexican priests who are also preparing another counter strike. Richard hurls his sword in a side pitch at the enemy line, and Krigsherre spins like a buzz saw across the distance and through five men in the front line, removing limbs like kindling then slashing into three of the priests. The defensive spell fails and the wasps the size of baseballs descend on that portion of the line, engulfing the remaining priests with a howl of pain as well as the soldiers in front of them.

His own line there surges forward to take advantage of the local weakness and he turns to survey the rest of the field as his sword returns to his hand of its own accord. The pommel of his Viking forged katana strikes his steel gauntlet of a hand with a metallic clang as he grabs it from the air absently. The rest of the field is much like what he had just encountered, his magic users defending well but counterattacking with little effect, though enough to allow his more mundane and conventional forces to advance, though slower than where he had personally intervened. This fight will be a slow slog through the enemy human and shapeshifter forces with a battle of attrition of his magic users against their priests.

He nods to himself, having estimated that this would be the case and turns to the rear, leaping ten yards in a single bound, then another, which lets him land next to the chestnut mare with a blond mane that his sister is mounted on. AppleJack snorts and starts at Richard's landing, which kicks up some gravel on the battlefield, Autumn keeping her seat easily as she scowls down at her brother, strands of auburn hair streaked with grey escaping from her braided bun.

"We'll have words about Maddie and Tony when this is over," she says in a hard tone, not her usual sisterly teasing and frustration, but that of an angry mother.

Richard grins internally at the tone, glad for it, even if his sister is unaware of what it means. Just as he knows that Tyr, the Norse god of war is riding his shoulder and pushing him to the actions leading him to this battlefield and his actions on it, her goddess is riding his sister in a similar manner. She would never take that tone with him, not like that, though Brighid, the matron as well as the warrior, would, and with no apology or regret.

"The time for half measures is over," Richard says in a commanding tone of his own, to which Autumn stiffens. "It is time to bring the axe and fire forward. It is time to show them why this is our land."

Autumn stares at Richard as he speaks, and before he finishes her eyes flare with a golden light, trails of smoky light rising from the edges as though a forge is contained behind her brow. She throws a leg over the saddle mount and drops to the ground in a smooth movement, landing with bent knees as her gaze shifts to the battlefield before her. She walks forward confidently as she raises her staff at her side and the asphalt of the three lane highway cracks and rises into a ramp before her. She ascends to ten feet over the ground after a dozen steps, now a dozen or so yards behind the main lines that are slowly pushing forward.

Richard smiles grimly as she raises her staff at her side and tosses her robe behind her to reveal the steel plate that encases all but her head, etching of Celtic runes running along all the plates in a menagerie of colors. He is glad she is finally emerging from the shell she has been in and is finally reaching her potential, though an inner voice, quiet and almost silent, but whispering to him all the same… _Her goddess is happy, and this is good for Houston and the Horde… but is this better or worse for her?_ Time will tell. Time will always tell.

Autumn chants the words she had learned when embracing Brighid all those years ago, when she had her first vision of the goddess and the spell for divine fire had been gifted to her. She had only on rare occasion used the spell, always as a last resort, always to help others in trouble. Not today. Not here, on the consecrated battleground dedicated to her goddess, dedicated to the war these interlopers brought to her home, to the homes of those she counts as friends, as family. Those who would purge her and her kind from these lands, just as others tried to erase them from their homelands. Not again. Never again.

Autumn feels the warm breeze as it lifts her robe away from her armor, light now, easy to move in though her mind doesn't focus on that, but on the scope and range of the spell she is bringing to fruition. She calls out the final command, gesturing forward with her staff in the air in the shape of the final runes to complete the spell, and the air flashes white and spreads across the field in front of her. The wave of light ripples out from her over the course of a few seconds, splashing against the priests in the lines across from her. Some have managed to put up blood wards around themselves or their groups, and the strongest among them hold against the tide of magic. But many, most of them, do not, but shatter against the power channeled down from a goddess onto them, and they fall to their knees with the others as the power drowns them and engulfs them.

The others not targeted in the enemy lines stop what they are doing as their priests fall, flashing with auras of white light, the magic they had been using falling from the field and flashing back to their owners. A pair of seconds pass, then as one all those targeted and crushed to their knees open their mouths in screams of agony as white flames blast upwards around them in roars of heat, the upper flames flickering to blue two meters above the ground. The screams are a single, short burst of pain and agony, blessedly brief, and the enemy soldiers shudder not only at the sound, but at the return of sensation and fatigue that the priests had been keeping at bay.

"Forward!" Richard shouts from behind her, and though Autumn felt the surge of power rush through her and out into the spell, she is not tired or fatigued, but energized as she surveys the field before her.

She watches as the army that fights for her goddess moves forward, no longer slogging and struggling for each yard of territory, but slamming into the enemy across the two hundred yards of the front. She smiles happily at the sight, the sacrifices for her goddess will be great this day, great indeed.

"Now would be an opportune time," Rodriguez says angrily to the priest, then turns to his runners to have the feral chicucabras sent forward to the right flank, to hopefully stall the crease of his front line and flank on that side.

"It would indeed," the priest says, stepping forward past the general and to a horse waiting for him nearby. "The priestess of the Celts was expected, but this was not," he says once in the saddle, gesturing to the sky. "I do not know where they learned this, but it is not something I cannot overcome. I will deal with the priestess. Bring up the reserves, I will have the front ready for a final offensive shortly."

The man with the eyes blazing with the same colors as the sky above trots his horse away from the Mexican General, two dozen others with him, half priests and half soldiers loyal to his command. He arrives at the retreating mass of soldiers that have fallen back from the Texans' assault, and he raises his hands high and calls out a word of power in the ancient language of magic.

"~~~~~," he intones, and all the soldiers and shapeshifters of the Mexican army within fifty yards of him halt their movements and freeze in place, shaking in strain against the magic that holds them.

The priest calls out orders, and his guards pull their blades while the priests around him erect a hasty spell, quickly closing a circle around them and the head priest, all on foot and their horses running back to the rear, away from the sounds of death and battle. The priests' chants in a language old before the rise of man, the others around him chanting in a tongue native to the Mayans as they support his spell with their own. The priest's thick, dark hair is a few in inches long and cascades to his shoulders in a dark wave as he pulls his robe open and drops it to the ground, tattoos in rainbow colors tracing his olive toned body in intricate patterns that resemble languages from across the world and from throughout time.

He raises his hands to the sky, and with an order, the soldiers cut down with short, strong blades, killing those around the circle, and each dies in a spray of blood from severed necks, flashes of dark red light speed to the circle around the priest and his assistants. The sacrifices feeding the power within him, he resumes his own chant, and now the light of his eyes grows intense and shining to all those around, piercing the gloom like lances of pure power and light. He reaches up with a hand and shouts a command, and the shining lights dancing among the clouds and illuminating the field start to shift, then coalesce and descend, collecting in the priest's hand, and drifts into his eyes.

Richard snarls as he steps to the side and cuts another of the enlarged vermin in half with his sword, having to move while attacking to avoid a bite from another of the creatures. The Mexican forces had released a swarm of altered chicucabras into their right flank, his circling left which held the cavalry forces of the Guard unit. Pushed forward and only marginally controlled by the Mexicans and pushed towards the Texas line, Richard had gone with a few teams that could be spared from the center lines to circle and help on that front.

The bastards are larger than usual, each the size of a pony or lager, four hundred pounds or more each, and all with those venom injecting fangs that cause paralysis and necrosis. Not a mortal wound to a shapeshifter, but to normal humans, a single bite means the end, hence why he brought a large contingent of the Horde to plus up the Cavalry, with him in the lead, since Autumn has engaged in the center, which is nearly completed in its defeat.

As he finishes dispatching the second creature he turns to see another magic circle arise from the center of the enemy's lines, then a slow pull of the lights overhead towards it, absorbing the light upon the battlefield. He curses and shifts into warrior form, turning and grabbing one monster in one hand and hurling it into another ten yards away while slicing another's head from its body. The enemy gets a vote, and it just laid down another one against his High Priestess in the center. He needs to wrap this up and get to help there, one way or another.

Autumn scowls at where the human sacrifices have been made, not volunteers, but chattle beneath the arms of the men serving the priests across from her. Not proper sacrifices, even in their own culture, their own soldiers, killed by their own side, against their will, without their knowledge or consent. Deplorable, dishonorable. Most importantly to her, though, is it also makes it less potent, less powerful.

"AppleJack!" she calls out and her horse trots to beside the stone mound, and she bounds from her perch overlooking the field into his saddle.

The horse snorts and rises on its hind legs a bit, its glossy coat seeming to glow in the low light, the yellow mane now looking golden and haloed with a shining light of its own. AppleJack snorts and stomps his front hooves, chomping at his bit and Autumn doesn't reach down to soothe him as she normally would, but spurs him into a run through the advancing front line to where the priest opposite her is beginning to pull down the rainbow lights from above. They reach proximity quickly and Autumn pulls her mount to a skidding halt on the asphalt of the road, then throws a leg over and drops to the ground.

The horse is trotting to the rear as Autumn slams the butt of her staff on the ground, erecting a short circle of power around her, and she chants in Gaelic as she pulls power from the field around her, the ground beneath her, the air that surrounds them. She calls the power of the earth itself and after the length of a few long breaths, she unleashes the power and leans forward with arms spread and pushing forward. Her white and slightly blue tinged magic splashes against the ward erected by the priest, who frowns from within his own circle, surrounded by his supporting priests within it, his guards arrayed outside.

"~~~~~!" Autumn shouts, using a word of power, and her vision wavering at the strain of using both the ward breaching spell and now this surge of exertion.

The circle around the man flickers, cracks appearing in the ward, but it holds, and he slashes at his hand with a dagger, as do the other priests within, all throwing their blood at the ward to strengthen it. Autumn shakes her head and grits her teeth, leaning her staff forward and using it to amplify her spell and her power, hoping she can drop the ward in time for her people, her brother, to finish them.

"Mateo?" Tony says in a bare murmur as he looks to where the sacrificed men have fallen, shaking his head in disbelief.

"You know him?" Maddie asks with a snarl as she deflects a sword thrust and shoves a long dagger into her opponent, keeping anyone from getting too close to Tony, who is uncharacteristically distracted in the battle.

"Used to," he says with a shake of his head, glancing skyward, then back at the figure in the circle with arms raised, drawing in the light from the sky. "We need to get there and stop him."

"Great idea, Aunt A is already trying, though, no luck," Maddie comments with a gesture of her chin at where the priestess has her staff planted in the ground and is pushing a white shield against the multicolored dome of the ward protecting the Mexican.

"I can get through," he says with a shake of his head. "Try to come back me up, I need a boost high so I can fly over. I can't take off this low down."

"This had better be a good idea," Maddie grouses as she puts the dagger in its sheath and cups her hands.

"Probably not," Tony admits and Maddie only shakes her head as he puts a foot in the cup and shoves himself up as she throws him.

He pops a dozen yards over the ground and his cloak snaps out into wings and he starts beating them hard towards the clash of the magic users. He beats the wings of his cloak hard with magic, surging him just out of reach of those on the ground, but still a target for bows and missles, he needs to keep this flight short. He beats up then swoops in a shallow dip with a pair of beats at the bottom to pick up speed, darting between a pair of Mexican groups organizing to fight. They don't get a shot off at him as he shoots past, starting to arc up, and he pulls his magic to him, turning the wings to leather in an instant.

Tony twists his body in midair as the momentum of his flight takes him to the sphere surrounding the Mexican priests, to the side of where Aunt A is assaulting the defensive position. Tony chants a short spell and its closing command word in the ancient language, his body becoming hazy for a moment as he is about to hit the ward. He strikes the ward and bites down on the scream of pain as he phases through the defensive ward, his body uninhibited by the spell, but the magic resonating through his being and racking him with pain. He practically sprawls onto the ground a pair of yards from the lead priest, having not meant to strike him, the other priests at the edges of the twenty yard diameter of the ward.

"Mateo," he says from his back, reaching up with one arm and pulling his mask from his face and turning to the man who is pulling the light from the sky and is turning to him with a hand prepared to cast a spell.

The priest pauses as recognition crosses over his face, and he lowers his hand from the spell he was about to send at Tony, the light from the sky still passing down through the ward and into his eyes.

"Anthony?" he says in confusion, speaking in another language they both learned on the mountainside, one in which no one else present could know. "What are you doing here? I thought you remained on the mountain."

"I did," Tony says, turning to his side and cautiously rising to his knees, keenly aware of the other priests around him, eyeing him suspiciously and ready to pounce on him if he becomes a threat. "It has been a long time for me, and this is my home. Why are you attacking my home?"

"Your home?" the man Tony knew as Mateo says with a shake of his head. "I am sorry to say that this land was once my ancestors, and I have come to make it so once again."

Tony slowly tucks his mask in his belt to the side deliberately, the priests watching him carefully, "Call it off. It's not too late to stop the fighting. Something can be worked out."

"Anthony, you were once my brother, but you are one of _them_ ," Mateo says with a shake of his head, frowning and starting to sneer at him. "You are a blight on this land, and I shall remove you and your people from it."

Tony sighs, lowering his head, "I am sorry to hear that."

Tony's left hand darts out from his back, where it had edged after tucking away the mask, and pulls out DragenBien, and he extends it to its full length as a spear. Mateo blinks in brief surprise and jerks to the side to avoid the strike and is only partially successful, taking a deep slash across his right shoulder as he staggers back. Tony takes a hit on his left side from a blast of force thrown at him from a priest on that side, and he is hurled bodily into the ward. Pain flashes through his body as he strikes, and he hits the ground boneless and with his breath knocked from him. Only training allows him to groggily and raise his arms to where another of the priests is over him, thrusting down with a short, ceremonial dagger to bury in his chest.

He pushes the thrust to the side and grips the man's wrists, jackknifing his knee up hard into the man's temple, then twisting awkwardly to the side as he wrenches the dagger away from him. Tony rolls to his side, avoiding a narrow blast of destructive magic from another priest, and he throws the dagger at that priest as he lands on his back again. The dagger isn't meant for throwing and his aim is off, but the butt of the weapon still strikes the man across the forearm and breaks his concentration. Tony rolls more controlled to a knee as he pulls his kurki from his side, rising into another priest who has lunged at him with his own short dagger.

He parries the thrust with a forearm across the man's wrists and places two quick chops onto the joints on that man's elbow and shoulder, then pivots and hurls the kurki end over end at a priest opposite him in the circle. The heavy Ganga Ram lands solidly in the man's side, burying up to the hilt in the man's ribs, as he had been focused on keeping the ward up while only a few in the circle dealt with Tony. Tony reaches to pull his katana from its sheath but before he can draw it more than a handspan another blast of force strikes him and hurls him into the ward from the priest he had only distracted with the thrown dagger a moment before.

Tony is gasping as he tries to rolls to his back, adrenaline unable to push past the pain and injuries his body has taken in the last minute or so. He is kicked in his side, and he fights not to curl up in pain, but gasps and spits blood regardless, though he is glad for the new armor, as he's sure he'd be broken and dying rather than bruised and drained had he not worn it. On his back, he looks up at Mateo, who has the kurki in his hand, frowning to look down at it, then looks at Tony with a frown of his own.

"You were always his favorite," Mateo says with an angry curl of his lip. "If only he could see us now, eh? See how you are not as great as he had hoped you would be."

"He'd see how short sighted you are," Tony spits back, blood dripping from his lip, and he focuses on pushing his pain away and evening his breathing out.

"What?" he asks, confused until a moment later when a flash of light and the relief of magical pressure signals the breaking of the ward around them.

"Away!" a shout rings out over Mateo, Tony and the others that had been in the circle, and a blast of force surges over them.

The magic force wave lifts the Mexicans from the ground and hurls them away, twenty to thirty yards, though it only ruffles Tony's hair and cloak as it passes over him. He fights down the groan of pain in his chest and hip as he shoves himself to his feet, looking back to the Texas lines as he does. Approaching over what had used to be the line of the ward is Aunt A, dressed in shining armor with glowing runes etched on it, her staff in hand and an angry expression on her face.

"You are not supposed to be here," she says with a growl at him, and though he knows she is angry, he can also see exhaustion and worry etched in the faint lines near her eyes.

"Can we argue later?" he asks, bending down and picking up his spear, turning it to a bow and pulling an arrow from his quiver. "After we finish up the bad guys?"

"We will talk about this," she says low, but gestures with her staff at where the priests are rising. "You seemed to know the leader. Do you want me to handle him?"

"No," Tony says with a sigh, shaking his head as he draws the black fletched arrow back to his ear. "It's handled."

Mateo is rising to his feet and raising a talisman to protect himself as Tony takes aim and looses his arrow, the god forged bolt shearing through the magical defense as though it had not existed, then cutting through the priest's throat and spine like a hot knife through butter.

Richard watches the enemy army flee the field, his own forces having won the field but in no shape to pursue and capitalize on the victory.

"I'll be honest, I'm tired of being the bold, daring commander who wins entirely by trickery and guile," he says in a growling voice with a frown of distaste as he steps next to where Autumn is on her knees with her staff leaning on her shoulder while she stares blankly at the battlefield, scavenger birds beginning to descend among them.

She looks up at him with a frown of her own, shaking her head, "I don't like it either. You should stop it."

"I have," Richard says, turning his tiger-like head forward where a flash of lighting cuts through the sky above and strikes down in the direction the routed Mexican army is heading.

"What is that?" Autumn asks, frowning as she narrows her eyes and peers into the distance while levering herself to her feet.

"I hedged my bets," Richard admits with a shrug, setting the tip of the enlarged Krigsherre on the ground and leaning on it casually, despite the blood on his right side and left shoulder from gaping open wounds. "The Rangers weren't the only ones I had move into position with Tony when he arrived. Thor and the Vikings have been hovering at their rear, concealed by the Nation's magic users and guides, waiting for this moment, or a call from me for aid. Rangers from Fort Lewis also dropped last night and are in position to flank that maneuver."

"And you waited until _now_?!" she nearly shouts at him, turning to him with an angry glare.

He turns to her glare with the bland look of the great cat whose face he wears as he answers, "Of course I waited. We had everything under control."

"Tony almost died!" Autumn growls at him, taking a step closer. "If he hadn't done whatever it is he did to get inside the ward, I couldn't have broken through. We'd have lost."

"Another pair of breaths, and I'd have called Thor, and between you and him you'd have dropped the ward and crushed the priest," Richard counters, turning to look at where others are now approaching them, almost in hearing distance. "You need to have more faith in me, sis. I love my kids, just like I love you. Trust me."

"It would be easier if you would share more," she says with a frustrated growl as the weight of her armor causes her to shift her stance, her right knee starting to throb with pain.

"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" Richard says with a grin that shows off his three inch long teeth in a gleaming cat's smile.

Tony rides behind Maddie on Trixie as they ride the last of the distance to Houston and home. They'd wrapped up the battle, but having not been directly contracted they'd not had a unit to assist, per se, so they'd spent the last week since the battle ranging out from the main body of the Guard forces as they consolidated and prepared to move forward to where the previous border had been. With the enemy army defeated, Richard had the others called up to service consolidated then processed to return home, which they have been doing over the last few days. The Ptactors and the other flying assets being the last to return so as to help the National Guard and to keep security and observation available from above.

All said and done, the last week has been mostly small skirmishes against surviving bands of enemy soldiers and magic users with the occasional Mexican shapeshifter mixed in that had fled the battle. So it is with an eye to relaxing and enjoying being home that Tony and his group complete the final leg of their journey that took them to the far side of the planet and back again.

"It's been a while since we've been home, a couple months," Maddie comments as the wind passes her face and she looks at the outline of the Bastion becoming larger as they get closer. "How long has it been since you've seen home?"

"Two years, three hundred forty seven days and this morning," Tony says from where he looks over her shoulder past Trixie's wing, his tone wistful and barely audible, even to her.

Maddie's expression is thoughtful as her brows furrow and his words sink in, causing her to do the mental math that tells her that he's been gone much longer than she, or anyone, thought he had been.

Tony hugs his father, surprised at how much better he feels to be near his family again, even though he's only known them for so short a time. He glances around for a moment, noting that Maddie has gone to stable Trixie, the others from the mission have dispersed some and only Mischa is within shapeshifter hearing distance, talking with Aunt A. He mentally shrugs at the presence of the last and decides to trust that Mischa will either be too preoccupied to hear or overlook what he is about to say for his sake.

"Dad, I have to ask you a question," Tony says in a lower tone, hoping to keep their conversation private.

"Shoot," Richard says with a furrowed brow and a focused expression at his son, a slight smile in an attempt to lighten his appearance, but generally failing.

Tony pushes any anxiety that he may have felt aside, the journey from India giving him confidence he hadn't had before, "I wanted to ask for your blessing to ask Maddie to marry me."

Richard blinks for a moment, expecting something else, and instead he grins at his son, the expression bright and filled with joy, completely at odds with his normal demeanor. He laughs lightly with a slight glint in his eye, making him look a decade younger and more like Tony's older brother, rather than his father.

"Absolutely," he says with a grip on Tony's shoulder as he continues to grin at him, then chuckles and shakes his head. "Though I'd suggest you not drag your heels, or she may beat you to it."

"Why? Did she ask you for your blessing?" Tony asks, a touch confused but recovering quickly.

"She doesn't ask me for anything, in the main, unless its Horde related," Richard says with a wry shake of his head. "If she gets it in her head to do it, she'll do it, and everyone else be damned."

"Well, then," Tony says, with a firm nod. "I need to go grab grandma's ring from the house we were in before it's too late and she cuts me off at the pass," Tony says with a gesture down the line of buildings. "I'll be right back, can you keep her occupied for five minutes?" he asks, his unscarred eyebrow raised.

"For this, absolutely," he says with a smile. "I'll make sure there's a suitable crowd to embarrass the two of you."

Now it's Tony's turn to snort then chuckle and say something he wouldn't have before his sojourn, a mark of just how much he's changed.

"I don't give a damn about them. Only you, Aunt A and the family matters, the rest can go pound sand if they don't like it," he says with a slightly derisive smirk, turning to retrieve the ring in question.

Maddie is fighting not to actively scowl as she and the other members of the group that had travelled to recover Tony are gathered, wishing she could just get some alone time with her mate. She recognizes Rick's mind at work, though, welcoming and celebrating the returning heroes, all but parading them through the Bastion as the Horde gathers in the lanes, celebrating not only the victory over the Mexican Invasion, but Tony's return. He'd told them point blank that they are required to walk a full circuit around the arena before they go in, where buffet tables are setting up for a feast. Rick is treating Tony's return as though another Agoge had been accomplished, and in a way it has, for Tony that is.

She'd worried for him when he was taken because of his lack of training for something like what he was thrust into, but he'd adapted and survived his ordeal, emerging stronger from it. She is pulled from the thought as warm fingers thread into her left hand, and she smiles at Tony, whom she'd heard approach. He has his mask off and tucked in his belt, the scarred side of his face with a muted kaleidoscope of colors shifting across it. She smiles at him, breathing easier with him at her side, then turning to the crowd that is starting to gather around them.

"Tony, are you ready?" Rick asks, and Maddie is puzzled for a moment, turning to look at Tony.

Tony has let go of her hand and has lowered himself to one knee while pulling a velvet box from a fold of his leather armor. Her mind is not comprehending what is happening as he opens the little box and shows a gold ring with a small diamond on it, and her eyes widen as the meaning hits her. Her ears are filled with a howl from within her own head and she feels slightly dizzy while looking at the small piece of jewelry. Tony is looking up at her expectantly, and she blinks as he starts to look worried and glances to the side at Rick, and she realizes she didn't hear him speak.

"Maddie? Is that a yes?" he asks, half smiling up at her.

"Say it again, please," she says softly, swallowing on a dry mouth.

"Madelyn Summers, will you marry me?" he asks, his single green eye looking up at her own, and the rest of the world disappears for the both of them.

"Of course I'll marry you, I'm your mate," she says with a smile as he rises to hug her and kiss her, the rest of the world nothing to them in that moment.

End…


End file.
